What's Your Name, Girl? By Maya Angelou

Don’t you hate being called the wrong name or by a name you don’t like? Maya Angelou’s “What’s Your Name, Girl?” addresses the importance of specifically African American names. Angelou does this by telling about her experience of being called out of her name. Marguerite is highly offended with being called out of her name. It starts off with Mrs. Viola Cullinan mispronouncing Marguerite’s name, calling her Margaret. Mrs. Cullinan is having some friends over and one of the women says to Viola, “…the name’s too long. I’d never bother myself. I’d call her Mary if I was you.” (page 59. paragraph 19) This really triggers Marguerite. She exclaims that if Viola ever called her Mary, she would no longer work for her. The next day, Viola calls Marguerite “Mary”. Miss Glory, another servant, hears
Cullinan and her companions. Miss Glory tells Marguerite about how she let Mrs. Cullinan slide with calling her Glory. Marguerite learns that her name was once Hallelujah. She reacts to this by saying,” …it was a tossup over whether I would laugh (imagine being named Hallelujah) or cry (imagine letting some white woman rename you for her convenience).” (page 61. Paragraph 34). Marguerite wants to quit her job. She wants to do this because she was called out of her name. Her brother Bailey, told her about Cullinan’s favourite china. Marguerite purposely breaks the China to get fired. Mrs. Cullinan sees her beloved chine be broken. She begins to call Marguerite racial slurs and calls her Margaret instead of Mary at the end. This is important because she realizes that there is a power shift in the roles. This signifies the importance in African American names.
Angelou explains the importance of names in African American culture by using her experience from the past. She proves that there is a high importance of calling people by their true name, not to degrade them. Her rebellion makes a very big statement in what point she was trying to