When I was a teenager I toyed briefly and humiliatingly with changing my name. I won’t go into what my chosen new moniker was because, quite frankly, it’s too shameful to inscribe in print. In my defence I was 15 and I had a lot of feelings.

At the time, I couldn’t understand why wanting to change my name made my parents so upset. They seemed to take it stoically enough when I informed them over breakfast one Sunday morning, but then I saw my mum crying about it in private. I was nonplussed. It was my name, after all, right? What power did they have over it?

Thankfully, my desire to change my name evaporated as quickly as a similar adolescent urge to pierce my nose. But it was only years later that I understood why my parents were so hurt by my narrowly avoided decision. My name is as much theirs as it is mine. They carefully chose it, wrapped it up as neatly as possible and hopefully, reverently gave it to me. My name is their way of marrying the two halves of me: Australian and Chinese.

I don’t look very Chinese, something that is often commented on. That’s another story, for another time. But by correcting all the mispronunciations of my last name I am standing up for that half of my heritage. I’m drawing attention to the fact that I have a Chinese last name, courtesy of my Chinese father, and because of it I am a Chinese girl, just as how Chrissy has a Norwegian last name, courtesy of her Norwegian father and her Thai mother.

Why Chrissy Teigen should correct the people who get her name wrong