Back in 6th grade, I represented my state in a national chess tournament. As usual, a week before the competition, all the chess athletes would gather for intensive training.

There was this one Chinese guy who had a bit of a cocky attitude. It didn’t help that there was a Chinese girl who joined the group, which made him even more full of himself when she was around.

One day, while we were on the bus, he talked with me. He asked:

“What’s your name?”

“Hilmi,” I replied.

“What? Ikmi? Kimi?”

“H - H-E-L-M-I,” I spelled out the "H" because he just couldn’t get it right.

“Hell Me? Seriously? Why go to hell? Haha,” he joked, probably trying to make the girl next to him laugh.

I forced a smile, unsure how to react. But honestly, according to my religious teacher, if anyone should be worrying about hell, it’d be him.

–

I studied in the Middle East at university, but I never attended a local university in Malaysia. So, I often spoke Arabic or English with the people around me. I noticed a lot of people (especially those from Europe) couldn’t pronounce my name correctly. They kept repeating "Ilmi, Ilmi," and I was like, if you keep this up, I might lose my temper. I thought it was only that guy from back then who couldn’t get it right—guess not.

I remembered how the Prophet would change names with negative meanings to better ones.

My name has a good meaning, but many non-Arabs or non-Malays still get confused with the pronunciation, let alone understand its meaning.

One day, I was chatting with a guy from Canada on Discord. He asked:

“How do I pronounce your name, bro?”

This time, I decided to give him a simple answer while typing in the chat:

“It’s Hilmi, but you can pronounce it as ‘Heal Me.’”