I’m 25 years old today. I like to call myself a 2-year-old in “Real World Years”, because I think the Real World affords perspectives on life, relationships, work, and identity, in ways that I never glimpsed in college or earlier. Nonetheless, birthdays serve as an opportunity to think about life, and so far everything has distilled into a single theme: Be Happy.

Unrelatedly, I’ve now been going as Potluck for almost 2 years, and legally have been Potluck since January, so I think it’s been enough time for me to have some takeaways and thoughts on my name that are beyond just initial reactions to the change.

To start with the background:

I was, of course, not born Potluck. My birth name was पुलक, pronounced roughly as “pull + luck”, anglicized as Pulak. At some point in early elementary school, someone bestowed upon me the pronunciation of “poo + lock”, which is how I introduced myself for all of grade school and college. I do quite like the way the Hindi pronunciation rolls off the tongue, but I don’t feel like I ever felt a deep attachment to my name as I would say it and hear it said.

The summer after college, I was traveling in South East Asia with Alvin, who would introduce himself as “Alvin, like the chipmunk.” I was envious of how everyone remembered Alvin’s name, and that got me thinking down a path of mnemonics and nicknames for the next few months.

In January 2015, I was chatting with some friends about this, mostly jokingly kicking some ideas around, and Laura suggested Potluck. I was into the communal vibes, the similarity to my birth name, the idea of having a noun as a name, and just how fun the word is! Just a few weeks later, on my first day at Clever, I mentioned the idea of going by Potluck to Sparks, who was onboarding me, and he was into it as well. And that was it! In my “introduction email” to the team, I introduced myself as Potluck and asked my coworkers to call me that.

From there it snowballed — I actually really enjoyed being Potluck, introducing myself that way, being called that name. But I quickly started to feel cognitive dissonance in introducing myself as Potluck to my coworkers and new people I met, while still being referred to as “poo + lock” by old friends. It felt weird at first, but I started asking friends I knew prior to joining Clever to think of me as, and call me, Potluck as well.

I decided later in 2015 to initiate the legal name change process (which was fairly straightforward, though I had to print a Public Notice in the SF Recorder for 4 consecutive weeks), and on January 7th, 2016, my petition for change of name was granted by the San Francisco Superior Court. Since then, I’ve updated pretty much all my documents (SSN, DL, Passport, bank account/cards, insurance) and have totally settled into Potluck.

I definitely get some fun reactions. It makes for a fun impression. For most of my life, I was a tad too serious. My 24th year was a bit of an exercise in levity (including my first ever standup comedy set), and I think my name contributed, if only a tiny bit. Conversations and interactions where everyone feels at ease making a joke, just being fun, tend to be more fun (duh) than ones where that isn’t the case.

Interestingly, as a name you say, Potluck is a tad “clunky”. The consonants in the middle collide in a way you might not really think about, but it definitely does make it harder to achieve the optimal introduction — one in which someone hears me say “I’m Potluck”, and cleanly picks up and registers the name in time for me to say “And what’s your name?”

My favorite reaction was probably the person who tried to guess how it was spelled — as “Paatlak” — though of course I appreciate people who simply comment that my name is awesome. Some people assume I get tired talking about / explaining my name, which was kind of true in the first month or two last year.. but I’ve gotten sufficiently “good” at deflecting my name / treating it as just casually part of who I am, that I don’t actually get asked to explain it that much.

I do admit that I probably don’t quite answer the question people are intending to ask when they ask if Potluck is my Real Name, but that’s because since it’s my legal name and who I associate myself & my identity as, I do consider it my Real Name. And there are probably some people who think it’s weird but don’t tell me that to my face. Some friends I’ve known from Penn or earlier do take some time to get comfortable with it, which I understand — a name isn’t something you think about. It’s an implicit association. And knowing me for years definitely builds up the association between me and “poo + lock”. But I think Potluck grows on you!

My favorite nickname is Pots, though I accept Potty. I’ve definitely pulled my Driver’s License to “prove” it, and only once has someone (also of South Asian descent) still insisted “You changed it!!”.

So yeah. That’s me, Potluck! Be Happy, friends :)