The Hybrid Name: Claiming Multiple Lineages

Sor Juana's full name—Juana Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana—reflects her mixed Spanish and indigenous Mexican heritage, though she was known by the simplified religious name. The question of which name to claim, emphasize, or acknowledge reveals deeper tensions about identity across cultures. In contemporary multicultural societies, hyphenated names, name changes, and name choices reflect strategic identity claims. A person might be called one name by their family, another professionally, another in diaspora. Rather than viewing this as fragmentation, this concept frames hybrid names as sophisticated responses to genuinely multiple inheritances. Sor Juana's example suggests that the 'true' name isn't the simplest one but the one that most honestly accounts for your actual lineages and positions. For people navigating multiple cultures, the name that feels authentic often acknowledges complexity rather than reducing identity to a single cultural origin or a single role.