I ordered a coffee. The barista, a kind young man named Tyler, asked for my name, to write upon the cup. “Nobunaga.” He nodded, uncapped a black marker, and wrote with great care. Then he set the cup on the counter, for all to see. It said: NABOOGNA. He had taken my name, held it one moment, and returned to me something stranger and more powerful than the one my clan had carried for eight hundred years. I did not correct him. To correct the name a host inks upon your vessel is to refuse the vessel. I was Naboogna now. A woman’s cup said GRACE. A man’s said MIKE. Mine said NABOOGNA, in proud black letters, and when it was ready Tyler lifted it and called the name into the room without a flicker of doubt. “NABOOGNA?” I rose. I claimed my cup. I bowed. A name written in ink is heavier than a name merely spoken — it can be held, carried, and thrown away, which I learned is the custom, for the cup is meant to be discarded. I have not discarded mine. I have nineteen cups now. NABOOGNA. NABUNGA. NObaGAGA. BANANA — yes, the fruit found me again, at a second establishment. Each one a name this country gave me, freely, while trying its best. I keep them on a shelf, in a row, like the helmets of fallen ancestors. …I have begun ordering under names that are easier to spell, simply to see what they do with those. Yesterday I said my name was “Bob.” The cup said BOB. I felt, for the first time, strangely unseen. A man does not need his name pronounced. He needs only a kind stranger willing to guess.