Sharing a Name

In the future we will all use UUID v7

By Ibrahim Diallo

Published 4 hours ago ~ 5 minutes read

My bank card never arrived. I called the bank and, after being redirected through several departments, was assured that it had been mailed. Then we argued a bit about what "7 to 10 business days" meant, we were already on day 14. We ended the call by agreeing to disagree.

Eventually, I did get my card. But it wasn't the mailman who delivered it. Instead, it was my neighbor from two streets down. On the envelope, my address had been crossed out, and the word "incorrect" was handwritten beside it. Why? Because the mailman had done it. You see, I had just moved into the apartment complex, and my name looked familiar to him. Of course he knew who Ibrahima Diallo was, he had been delivering his mail for years. So he corrected it.

In the US, both my first and last name are uncommon (or so I thought). They're often a source of confusion when my Starbucks order gets called out. As it turns out, one of my neighbors shares the exact same name. And on top of that, he uses the same West African spelling: Ibrahima. The mailman, trying to be helpful, had redirected my mail to what he thought was the right address.

My neighbor and I laughed about it. Then I immediately cancelled the card and requested a new one...

Some years ago, I dated a woman from Bulgaria. She grew up in a small city where everyone knew each other. In their town, there was a single Black family. You probably know where this is going, but pretend you don't and follow along.

It was so unusual to have an outsider in this town that the man and his family became local fixtures. Wherever they went, people stopped to take pictures with them. They were like minor celebrities. So naturally, when she pulled out a photo from her childhood, there he was, posing cheerfully with the neighbors.

She turned the photo over to read the names written on the back. She stopped. She burst out laughing. I looked at the name. I can't read Cyrillic, but I know exactly how to spell my name in Bulgarian. His name read: Ibrahima Diallo.

When I was hired at AT&T many years ago, there was a week of confusion at first. I didn't receive my welcome kit. My manager swore that he had carefully selected my name, and sent it to my Texas address...

As you may have guessed, I do not have a Texas address. I lived in Los Angeles and the company where we worked in person was in Los Angeles. Somewhere in Texas, a long time employee must have been confused with this new welcome kit showing up in the mail.

Back when I was featured on the BBC, a wave of people reached out. Even though my picture was prominently displayed in the article, several people emailed me as if they already knew me, picking up conversations we had apparently started at work, signing off with "see you tomorrow." According to my inbox, I had met quite a few people in London. The only problem was, well, I've never been to London.

As it turned out, my neighbor's uncle had called him to say that some journalists were trying to reach his nephew through him. You'll never guess the uncle's name. Yes, it's Ibrahima Diallo.

I eventually met this uncle. We had a long conversation and discovered that he knew my father from back home. In fact, he had gone to school with one of my uncles and spoke fondly of him, saying he was a brilliant student. What's my uncle's name, you ask? Of course it's Ibrahima Diallo.

Growing up, I assumed my name was uniquely mine. But as I've made my way through the world, I've found that I share it with a surprisingly large number of people.

I already snagged ibrahimdiallo.com. I'm keeping an eye on ibrahimadiallo.com, hoping it expires this June so I can claim that one too. If it does become available, I'll gather an army of Ibrahimas, and we will... Well, I'm not entirely sure what we'll do yet. But it will definitely be fun.

Anyway, that's a story about my name.

A postscript worth mentioning: Both of my older brothers share the same first and last name as each other. You can imagine the fun they have. This is what happens in West African families when you name your children after their grandparents, and the grandparents happen to share the same name. One brother does have a middle name, intended as a differentiator. But middle names are rarely included in US mailing addresses, so that doesn't help much either.