My birth name is Aakansha and this year in 2022 at the age of 30, I decided to change my name. A lot of people have asked me the reason behind this so I thought I will type it out with 100% honesty and share.
So!
There are 2 reasons why I changed my name and I will write them in the order of importance:
1~> Biggest reason: So when I moved to Dubai post marriage, I was not just going through a big change personally, but also professionally. I changed careers from being a Marketing Strategist to a Life Coach & Healer. This meant I had to put myself out there- network, take classes, train as a Healer & Coach, build contacts, etc. Now, Dubai being an international city gave me an opportunity to interact with people from different parts of the world. I found myself connecting with a lot of people but no one could remember my name. They all had a very hard time pronouncing my name. As a result of this, I stopped telling people my name while interacting with them or when I would tell them my name, I’d say “don’t bother it’s hard for you to remember anyway.” As a result of this, people knew me only by face but no name. All the Indians I met, remembered my name in a jiffy (mind you) but I didn’t network or work with many Indians. Now, obviously I work with people from here, there everywhere! I faced a very similar problem when I was studying in the UK as well but changing name never occurred to me back then. So, to be able to put myself out there and put a name to a face (my lovely face), I changed it to a short, sweet, international name- Sia.
Reason Number 2~> The name Aakansha (my birth name) never resonated with me. I could never feel a connect with it. In fact, I felt a strong disconnect from it. I would feel like the real me and Aakansha are two different people. Sounds bizarre right? Imagine I lived this bizarre feeling for 30 years. Now, being a Sindhi (one of the Indian sub-castes) I know that girls have to change their name post marriage so that their new name is in resonance with the husbands name. Apparently, it's good for the longevity of the relationship; actually there’s an Astrology angle to it. I loved this idea growing up because I never liked my name anyway.
Unfortunately or fortunately (perspective based) at the time of my wedding, the pandit (priest) forgot to mention the name change! I’d already found out that the letter S is going to be best for our relationship since my husband’s name starts with R (Rajeev).
Wondering why?
Well, it’s cause of
Ram-Sita
R-S
So, even though I’d already thought of changing my name to Sia on the day of my wedding, the priest forgot and I was left with Aakansha for good 5 years post marriage. I didn’t make a fuss about this because my husband even today, refuses to the idea of me changing my name but in all honesty, he doesn’t even call me Aakansha (he calls me by a lovey dovey name since the day he put a ring on it ). But because of reason number 1 (the biggest catalyst) I decided to … change my name to Sia. And now, I choose to go by Sia!
So, SIA it is :-)
Love & Gratitude,
Sia (Aakansha)
P.S… I write Aakansha next to Sia and will continue so for a couple of months to avoid confusion till everyone around gets comfortable addressing me as Sia.
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