AITA for wanting to change my name?

NAH- you have every right to choose and change your name.

But can we recognise that the surrounding circumstances leading to this are unfortunate. Your parents' cultural expectations clearly weren't matched with the tact to make you take pride in your heritage, or even just think it equal to Dutch culture. Your case is a symptom of a society filled with thinly veiled racism and mild self-hatred fostered by inadequate parenting.The prevalence of Middle Eastern women getting rhinoplasty's to make their aquiline noses fit Eurocentric beauty standards in allegory to this wider problem.

If the society you lived in was more accommodating, less Islamophobic and perhaps your parents had more tact in introducing you to their culture, you could take more comfort if not pride in this part of your identity and move on. I'm sorry you felt you didn't fit in to your own name at home or into wider Dutch society.

/r/AmItheAsshole Thread