I always wonder why there is a ‘h” in my name.  Even my mother who put it there doesn’t know.  In France, Nichola is a boy’s name.  Ogiwara is often mistaken with Hagiwara in Japan.  This unfortunately continued even after the famous Ogiwara ski jumper brothers at the Nagano Olympics.  I’ve never liked my middle name so I pretend I don’t have one.
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Photo taken and name story provided on July 26, 2014 at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre as a part of Discover Nikkei’s workshop warm-up excercise in conjunction with the Nikkei Names: Taro, John, Juan, João? stories project.