Name Changes and Introductions

Welcome to our first episode of Rhythm in Purpose. This week we talked about name changes and why our current names speak to us.

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Transcript

Hello/introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Hello everyone. Hello! I'm Oriana Harmony and I'm Melody. And this is our first episode of Rhythm in Purpose. I'm very excited. Um, we've been planning this podcast for a while now. This is going to be a very long series of healing, learning to love ourselves, and I'm using this podcast to be like the opportunity to learn. I know for me, um, especially in the last four years, but I think this is kind of the case for everybody. Every day I find out something new that's happening in the world, and my goal with this podcast, and by sharing my stories and my flaws and the ways that I'm choosing to grow, that hopefully for the people out there who are also struggling to find more joy and more passion and more just love in themselves and their lives to maybe find that by even seeing me mess up by doing that. And I'm really proud that we gotten to a point where even by making this podcast we feel comfortable enough to like really speak to each other. Oh yes, around like three times. And the first time we made it, the episode was like an hour long, but that was only because we were so nervous, like we couldn't get our thoughts out correctly or like fast enough, so we Or with confidence. Or with confidence, and we proceeded to ramble because we didn't really know what we wanted this podcast to be, really. We've seen podcasts of other people and it looks easy, like influencers look like a job that needs celebrities, it looks easy. Brilliant idiots, they do it so they do it so well and to just be able to talk to each other. Yeah, and we thought that we could have the same like chemistry on the screen, but then we realized there were some things that we haven't fully healed through in order for us to get confident in order like confident enough to even talk to each other like we are right now. And I feel like that's a really big problem that I see in this generation and even in myself. We tend to think when we see something it's easier than it actually is. It takes a lot of work and a lot of like confidence as well, understanding like what to do exactly. Yeah. And like that's why I really am proud of this podcast, because we actually have a structure that we feel confident in and actually know what we're talking about and we also just been learning to have structure in our lives. Oh yeah. Also that because at first we didn't have structure, so um we were just going day by day. I know for me especially I was really going like day by day, one day at a time. Oh yeah. Like learning to have the structure. Um, in this podcast is also just a really cool thing because it's just one of the things that we are doing actively to have a better lifestyle as adults, really.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

I feel like it's only right to fully introduce ourselves before we start talking about what we're doing. I wanted to first introduce

Why we are changed our name

SPEAKER_01 4:00

ourselves as people. Um, I changed my name legally. Um, I know my sister is also in the process of changing her name, and I wanted to spend some time today just talking about like why we do that. Why we did that. Um, because I know for some people who might be familiar with me or like just know um me just a little bit as like a classmate or something, it might be a little bit of a surprise, but people don't know that I've been wanting to change my name for a long time. I just didn't realize how easy it was. That's the truth. I assumed it would it would be so difficult that I would only like change my name when I had a husband or a wife. So I didn't realize until later in my life that, oh, you could just s sign this and go to court and get it done. So for me, having my name, my current name, means a lot to me and it's not something that other people would really know or understand why. And I know for you, um, you've also wanted to change your name for a long time. And I think for the both of us is m it was mostly about that connection to our name. I never felt fully connected to my name. I liked some aspects of it, but even when I was like signing legal papers, I would forget like my middle name and my last name sometimes because that's how disconnected that name felt to me. Which is kind of like strange 'cause names, especially like last names, um, are so attached to like family and I don't want it to be like, uh, you changed your name because you weren't like connected to your family. Like I love the mobile side of me and it has nothing to do with like just hating my family or anything like that. Like how some might believe it would be. It was just for me, I wanted a name for a long time that fully felt like me, like my full identity. Um, because my brother who has that name, that last name Mobile, is an amazing guy, amazing brother, he just graduated to, and it was amazing seeing him walk the stage. It was such a beautiful moment. Um awfully short, but uh very second person. Basically. And then we just left. I thought it was gonna be a lot more elaborate than that, but uh it was still a really dope thing to see, and that's just an example of like someone I'm personally connected to who has that last name. Um but for me all my life it wasn't the name that connected me to my family, it was my family.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

So having that last name Mobile didn't have as much weight for me than that bond that I had with the pe like the members who do have that last name. But I want a name that can like go even past me, if that makes sense. Yeah. Like kind of pass it down, but like basically that lives on even after I do. Yeah. No, I get that. But I didn't know really at the time what I wanted that name to be. Um when I would write in my songbooks and stuff, I went by uh Romani. Like um I know you went by Roman names. Cause I was at one point um a barb. So you know how she has Roman as her uh alter ego. I used to feel so attached to that. Oh I kinda remember the first name because I was gonna change my whole name too. This is another thing that people don't know. I was gonna change my entire name. Okay. But I always will circle back to Oriana being my first name because that was the name my parents agreed on. It's the name that I do feel attached to because I do like that it means gold and golden. Um, I do like how it rings. It sounds similar to Ariana, which is one of my favorite s singers of all time. Um and it's definitely a name that's unique. And at the time, especially uh when I was younger, I wanted something unique. Which is also why I never s settled on Romani, because it sounded too common. Yeah. A name, a lot of times people s are like there's two sides when it comes to like names. Some people are like, eh, I don't care about my name, it's fine, it's the thing I identify as, I guess. And then there's other people that I feel like you're more a part of and I'm more of a part of, where it's like, it's something that connects more than my being. It connects to my spirit, it connects to what I believe myself to be. And that kind of was the same thing for me. I felt like I had to love that name because that was my name. That's what people chose for me. And I had the same issues with my middle name as well. I I wanted to change my middle name, but I didn't know what. And I honestly wanted to change my full name, but I just didn't know what. So at first I went as Colette and Nari Ali Mayu, not knowing that the way I spelled Inari meant like rice goddess, I believe, or like a name for like a rice goddess, and um yeah, that's not what I wanted. So I was like, what name could I possibly go as? And it was like something that was bothering me for a long time. I literally felt like I didn't know who I was because I was like, I don't like my middle name at all, and I didn't know what to do. So I was like, but I still do love my first name, Mikhaila. I just didn't know what to do with it. So right now I'm going as Melody for my professional name, but I still am keeping Mikayla as my official name because that is the name my father chose for me. And I connect to that name. And my last name, that can change with marriage, that might even change soon if I'm like, you know what, drop mobile. So what made me settle with Oriana Anika Harmony was similar to um what Kyla was saying about Melody. I really love Oriana and I do love, even though again, names to me doesn't like represent like that bond, it's the bond itself. Still, I did like that my parents agreed on this name for me. And I do like what they came up with, and I do like what it also symbolizes as well. And so I kept that as my first name. I wanted an Afrocentric name as well. I didn't want a name that again was common, but also didn't want a name that was so Eurocentric, if that makes sense. No, that makes sense, yeah. I wanted a name that also represented like my blackness as well, and really connected to that aspect of me. So that's when I fell onto Anika, and that means good. Lastly, harmony, which harmony is harmony. So my name would mean gold, good, harmony. So that's kind of what my name means, and I really love that name. I love it so much that honestly my husband or my wife will just have to take it. Or we'll have to do that thing where like we have two last names. So I'll be like Oriana Anika Harmony Smith. Because I really love that name. It feels like me, it doesn't feel like I am completely like dismissing the importance of names, where some people might take it as, oh, you're not representing your family. Well no, I I absolutely choose to represent my family in so many other ways other than just my name. And it's very important to know that with our names is very intentional. Like I went, I paid some money, it costs some money to get your name changed. It's not something you can just do willy-nilly. It definitely costs more than a Starbucks drink. Um I went to court, I had to talk to a judge. It was brief, and it was online, which was both very nice, but I still had to go through courts, had to sign a bunch of papers, turn in a bunch of files, literally have a whole case, basically, for my name change. It definitely wasn't something that was thought in like willy-nilly. They also put it in the newspaper as well. It was beautiful, and for the first time I felt fully whole in that aspect of my life. I've I felt like this was me. This was something just like my tattoo that I'm proud of, and they're both permanent in many ways. Um, we're gonna really be talking about in the next episode why did we really start this podcast and what is it for? What what purpose is the podcast? And we're gonna have a vision board, we're just gonna tell you all about it, tell you about the internship, and um tell you how we're using AI for education, but not generation. I feel like that's a big message that we need to get across for this era of time right now. Era of technology, era of technology. What a scary time to be in, especially for us entertainers out there. Yep. AI fruit. AI fruit island. That's a whole conversation that we are gonna talk about in the next episode. But yeah, thank you everyone for stopping by. Thank you. I hope you enjoy. Um, we're gonna be on, of course, Apple Podcasts, anywhere you get your podcasts. Um, we're also gonna be on YouTube. We have our channel, please subscribe, and if you want to turn on the notification bell. But just know that every Monday we're gonna have another episode for you. Um, we won't have the comments on, but I definitely will set up like maybe a Discord or something fun like that where we can talk about just our journey of growing and healing and wanting to better ourselves because that is definitely what you and I are doing. So if you're interested in any of that, please stick around and have a good day. Yes, have a good day.