Naming

---

I have two authentic names or orthonyms. 

1. tree turtle.
2. Cleis Abeni.

Neither of my names is a pseudonym. 

Both are official, authentic, and equally important.

I am a Black American woman and a citizen of the United States. 

I use Cleis Abeni for most business relations involving my published writing and my professional editing. For the last twenty-plus years, Cleis Abeni has been the byline for most of my written publications.  

When  I traveled to the city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀ in Nigeria in 1996 to do mediations and outreach on behalf of an organization dedicated to ending violence against women and LGBTQ people called Genders Within, one of the women called me "Abeni." "Abeni" is Yoruba for  "we asked for her, and behold, she came." I honor this woman and that community's naming of me.

"Cleïs" is the name for the child of the ancient poet Sappho. "Cleisthenes" was an ancient Greek populist leader who helped usher in a profound period of democratic egalitarian prosperity in Athens. I fell in love with the name Cleis when I was a pre-adolescent and I would sign the "letters to God" in my personal diaries with the name Cleis.

Thus, Cleis Abeni brings together longtime resonances and multiplicities that have fueled my lifework. 

tree turtle (spelled lowercase even at the beginning of a sentence) is my legal name and my Buddhist ordination name. I am an Upāsikā, or a Buddhist who has taken  perpetual lay vows. My name translated into the Buddhist language of Pali is vrksākā duli. An Upāsikā in a reformed Thervada, progressive, secular humanist tradition, pledges to adhere to the five precepts (pañcasīla), which are the following: 

1. Not harming others.
2. Not stealing.
3. Being open (and not misrepresenting).
4. Not mistreating others in terms of unwanted intimate relations.
5. Not abusing intoxicating substances. 

To learn about my Buddhist contemplative practice click here. 

To learn more about Buddhist understandings of animal spirit guides and plant symbolism click here, here, and here. 

My pronouns are she/her/ma'am.

Avoiding the trauma and violence of deadnaming, doxxing, and other forms of violent harassment is a part of the story of my names. 

Feel free to click here to learn more about the violence of deadnaming.