A Republican legislator in Texas, Betty Brown, is refusing to back down after suggesting Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are "easier for Americans to deal with" during House testimony on voter identification legislation. Specifically, she said:

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese -- I understand it's a rather difficult language -- do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?"

"Can't you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that's easier for Americans to deal with?"

Sure, having a hard-to-pronounce, polysyllabic name can be a little difficult sometimes. You'll hear hundreds of variations, many of them not even remotely close to the real pronunciation, as people try to sound it out. I've been called Elvis, Eylas, Elias, Elsa, Eljar, and so on—and that's not even counting the butchering of my last name. I probably lose 10% of my productivity at work just because of the amount of time I spend spelling my name to people over the phone in a given week.

But how boring would the world be if we were all Betty Browns and Joe Smiths? Betty Brown sounds like an alter-ego Stan Lee dreamed up in some second-rate comic book. But that's not fair, really. I shouldn't disrespect Betty Brown's name anymore than she should be disrespecting other people's names. A name is a symbol of a person, it represents a personality and shapes it at the same time. Your name isn't the sum of who you are, but it represents who you are to the outside world and affects how others interact with you, which changes who you are over time.

One of the subtle qualities I've always admired about Barack Obama is that he didn't try to earn respect by placating people who were uncomfortable with his name. Through his actions he gave them no choice but to learn to pronounce it. I'm sure he was advised, when he began considering a career in politics, to go by Barry as he had in his younger days. But President Barry Obama wouldn't be the same man as President Barack Obama. I honestly don't even think Barry Obama would have made it this far. That man would just seem less bold, less decisive, and quite frankly, less inspiring, than the current occupant of the White House.

This isn't about Betty Brown, really. There will always be Betty Browns—not just in Texas, but pretty much anywhere you go in the world. And there are valid reasons for people to change their names. Immigrants do it all the time to better assimilate into a new country. But that's a deeply personal choice and shouldn't be made because a Texas legislator is having trouble pronouncing it.