Mekeisha Sharee Black is a 25-year-old blond white woman from Lenawee County, but even if you don't say her name out loud, she probably knows what you're thinking when she introduces herself.
"I got all the time, 'You don't have a white girl's name,'" Black said.
Black said comments like that started in junior high. Up until then, she never thought twice about being named Mekeisha. It was just the name her parents gave her.
"My dad wanted to name me Mickey, like Mickey Mouse, and my mom wanted to name me Keisha -- so they just kind of came to a middle ground and just came to Mekeisha," she said. "Throughout high school, people would always make comments."
Being teased is one thing, but eventually it started to affect her professionally.
"In my teens I did the modeling world for a period of time and they actually highly suggested I change my name, and so on my comp card, which you have in the modeling world, my name was actually Keisha but it was spelled Keisa," she said.
Of course that didn't fly for Black for too long. Fast forward to today. Black works as an executive director of a non-profit. It didn't take long before she started feeling prejudice towards her name.
"One of my employees came in, tt might have been my second week on the job, and she said, 'I got a phone call and someone asked me do you guys have an African-American director?' And I do come from a community where Caucasian is the majority of the population," Black said.
Sociologist David Merolla studies the effect of names.
"There's research evidence that people with ethnic sounding names will tend to have less success on the job market and situations where they're looking for apartments," Merolla said.
He believes that even in 2014, people are still judged on their name. He's studied how a person's name can have an affect their success in life.
"The most famous or the most well-known research in this area was a study where they sent out over five thousand resumes to employers," said Merolla. "The only difference on the resumes was the first name. Half were named either Emily or Greg. The other half were named Lakeisha or Jamal."
Emily and Greg's resumes got twice as many responses.
"I want you to care about the person that I am and getting to know me as I am and not a name," Black said.
Black could choose to go by a nickname but doesn't. She's proud of her name and hopes that other people see her story and give everyone an equal opportunity.
"Don't' let your name define your destiny," she said.