BOOKS

“They tried to rename us. We remembered who we were.”

What does it mean to be called strong when all you want is to breathe?

What happens when silence becomes survival—and survival becomes worship? In Names I’ve Worn.

Deborah Adebayo offers a revelatory memoir that moves across continents and generations, from colonial Ibadan to the birthing wards of Philadelphia, from the kitchens of Toronto to the quiet corners of Vancouver.
This is a book shaped by memory, migration, matriarchy, and the sacred labor of healing.

Written with spiritual fire and prose that burns with clarity, Names I’ve Worn is a remembrance of women who lived with grit and grace, who bore the weight of their histories in silence, and who refused to disappear. It is part testimony,
part lineage—a record of truths that refused to die and faith that flourished underground.

This is not a story of triumph told for applause.

This is the holy work of becoming—when the world forgets your name, and you remember it anyway.