Dr. Andy Szeto: What's in a Name?
This is an excerpt from Dr. Andy Szeto's second book, A Life in English, which is available this Saturday, November 7, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. e.t. from The Worthy Educator Press, in both hard copy and eBook editions.
The first hurdle in America wasn’t homework or making friends. It was my own name. How to say it. How to sound out the American version of the letter Z properly. How to spell it with efficiency. And how to survive it in English. No matter how close people came, it was always a little off - because it was not in Cantonese.
Also, no one ever told me if the S or the Z in Szeto was silent. I just sounded it out as best as I could each time. At immigration and customs, in waiting rooms where clerks flipped through pages of stamps, people would pause at my legal name. They tried once. Then again. A third time. They looked at me, waiting for help. I didn’t know what to say. Sometimes I whispered it. Sometimes I guessed. Sometimes I just stayed quiet.
I wanted to be called Andy. That part was easy. It was the name my mother gave me when I was born. Not Andrew, but Andy. In British Hong Kong, it was common for people to have an English name alongside their Chinese name. My mother chose Andy without knowing that Americans would assume it was short for Andrew, and I did not know that either until we arrived in the United States.
I wanted to be called Andy because it was mine. It was not a nickname, not a shortened version of Andrew, and not a compromise I created to make myself easier for Americans. It was the name my mother had chosen for me. To me, there was nothing unusual about it. The fact that I had to explain it at all was what felt strange.
When people called me Andrew, I corrected them. I sort of hated it. What frustrated me even more was having to explain myself over and over again. Teachers and classmates would ask why my name was Andy if it was not short for Andrew. The answer was simple to me but difficult to explain. My English name came from Andy Lau, one of Hong Kong's biggest Cantopop stars. Yet that explanation often created more confusion than understanding. Most people had never heard of him, and as a newly arrived immigrant with limited English, I was not exactly equipped to explain Cantopop, Hong Kong celebrity culture, or why my mother had chosen the name. The conversation usually ended with puzzled looks, more questions, or sometimes laughter.
What bothered me was not that people were curious. It was the feeling that something completely normal in my world suddenly required a justification in theirs. Andy was not a nickname. It was not a shortened version of anything. It was simply my name.
But every form wanted my legal name, 紹熙 Siu Hei. Every office wanted it read out loud. I practiced in my head before the questions came, trying to line up the letters with sounds I wasn’t sure of. My name felt like a test I had to pass in front of strangers.
At home, names were different. My grandfather called me Ah B when I was small. B is short for baby. When I grew rounder and heavier, it became Fat B. In our family, nicknames stick whether you want them to or not. They felt warm and funny, even when they made me feel heavy. My legal name had been chosen with pride, honoring the Kangxi Emperor. But even that story was complicated. My last name carried another history. My paternal grandfather once tried to come to the United States as a paper son, borrowing the surname Szeto. He never made it, but after losing everything in a legal dispute, the name stayed. His real surname was Tang, but by the time he reclaimed it, my father was already Szeto. That twist meant our family plot bore two different surnames, and left me with the sense that who we were on paper didn’t always match who we were in truth.
By the time I would start school in Queens, I already had a handful of names: Ah B, Fat B, Siu Hei, Andy, and I already knew that my names could be a problem. In Hong Kong it was normal to carry both a Chinese and an English name. In America, Andy became the only one that I truly wanted to respond to.
At a doctor’s office or in government waiting rooms, I learned how it worked. Someone would pause at my legal name. Try once. Twice. A third time. Then I would offer “Andy.” They’d smile, relieved, and write it down. Sometimes they said it out loud as if to practice: Andy. Andy. Andy. I wanted to smile back, but I wasn’t sure if I should. But that unfortunately also caused a lot of confusion because almost everything important required my legal name.
Those moments followed me into school later. Roll call. Paper name tags. Lists taped to the wall. Whenever my legal name showed up, I had to decide whether to stand up and explain, or stay quiet until someone tried Andy instead. It was the same test I had been taking since the airport.
At night, I wrote “Andy Szeto” again and again in my notebook; the English curves quick and easy. Then in pencil, I wrote 司徒紹熙, the characters slower but more certain. Two names. Those characters felt home.
And to be honest, being called by my last name, 司徒 Szeto, is the worst. That is what my father’s friends called him. He had been an avid gambler and womanizer, with occasional flashes of decent fatherhood that surfaced unpredictably amid the instability and contradictions that defined much of his life. So when someone calls me Szeto, I hear more than a last name. I hear an echo of someone who would eventually walk away or wasn’t exactly there. I felt a shadow of a story I did not choose. That is why I corrected people when they did that, too. So what’s in a name is complicated for me. It is not just identity. It is the memory that stays, and also what leaves.
Maybe that is the clearest way to describe what names have been for me. They are more than labels; they carry history, memory, expectations, and belonging. Every name I have used has connected me to a different part of my life, a different community, and a different version of myself. Sometimes the most important changes are the quiet ones, the ones you never formally announce because you are still learning what they mean and how to live inside them.
And if these ideas resonate, check out my new book A Life in English, available from The Worthy Educator Press, and my writing at drandyszeto.com.
Lead Forward is an exclusive feature by Dr. Andy Szeto on The Worthy Educator. Check back regularly for new insights for aspiring leaders!
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