top of page

My Name: An Update (April 17, 2019)

I want to share with my community a change in how I see myself. I am choosing from now on to go by Nic, rather than Nick. It is a small change on the surface, but it carries symbolic weight, and I feel that I owe you all a brief explanation. 

My name is Nicolas Miller Benacerraf. It is meant to be pronounced in French, the only language I spoke before starting school in this country. There is no H in Nicolas, and accordingly no K in Nic. 

Early on I adopted Nick, probably as a way to find belonging in US culture. As I've grown older, this move has increasingly felt at odds with the pride I take in being a first-generation US-American with parents from Paris and Quebec – and as a shallow way to compensate for my long, Jewish-Arabic last name. It smacks as an immature effort to claim privilege through assimilation, which runs counter to how I want to be in the world as an artist and critical scholar. 

This shift draws heavy inspiration from my friends, especially my trans and gender-nonconforming friends, who have demonstrated eloquently the personal and political value of correcting the public record to match their truest selves. While I don't occupy the same social position as these folx, I am encouraged to embrace that we are always in flux, all of us. 

Now that I am on the cusp of publishing academic work, I am seizing this moment to adjust my public face so that it better aligns with my internal self. You certainly won't ruffle any feathers in the near future by typing Nick, and it's impossible to make the mistake verbally. Go ahead and change it in your phone, if you don't mind. 

Thanks, all, for reading, for seeing me, for joining me in leveraging every ounce of available energy towards fostering a global community that thinks and acts expansively about how to care for people.  

See you on the battlefield.

Yours,
Nic

  • Black Facebook Icon
  • Black Instagram Icon

© 2025 by Nic Benacerraf

bottom of page