Every year, on the first day of school, teachers would give their spiel.
Syllabus this. Office hours that. Then they got to my favorite part.
Attendance.
And every year, they’d look down at the sheet, look up at the class, look down at the sheet again, and say this.
“If I butcher your name, I’m sorry.”
Every year, I knew something nobody else did. Sometimes, I’d wait it out; other times, I didn’t.
It’s funny when you’re the only one in on a secret.
And that secret always stopped teachers in their tracks.
They would always look down and see this staring back at them.
Akinkolade Abode
They wouldn’t know where to start.
They wouldn’t know where to finish.
They wouldn’t know how to spell it even though it was right under their noses.
And every year, I’d raise my hand and say,
“That’s me.”
It happened in elementary, middle, and high school.
It happened in undergrad.
It happened in grad school.
It even happened at work and on zoom and on teams.
So many mispronunciations.
So many “how do you say that”s.
So many “what does it mean”s.
But yea, that’s me.
It’s Akin for short.
And no, not like the one in the dictionary.
Think Ah + keen.
If you want to know what it means, it’s Yoruba, and it means:
The brave one that will bring honor home.
If you want to know how to say the whole thing:
¯\_(ツ)_/¯