When Barry Became Barack

Barry Obama met Eric Moore fresh on arrival from Hawaii at Occidental College in Los Angeles. The two roamed in the same circles, gravitating toward friends who considered themselves "progressive," including many with international backgrounds. Moore came from the mostly white college town of Boulder, Colo. He hoped Occidental and Los Angeles would expose him to African-American culture in a way that his Caucasian-dominated world back home could not. Yet Occidental had 1,675 kids enrolled, and only 17.7 percent were minorities.

"There was a certain kinship right away," Moore says. He remembers Obama as polished and precocious. He seemed older than his age, unless you considered the flip-flops, T shirt and Hawaiian shorts he wore around campus. "He was more worldly than the average kid in California," Moore says, "although he clearly looked like a surfer type."

Their kinship was strengthened in conversations like the one they had about a trip Moore took during the summer of 1980. He visited Kenya—the homeland of Obama's father and other relatives—as part of a program that sent teens abroad to do volunteer work. Moore told Obama about his experiences, and explained how the trip was one of the most powerful events of his life. "It helped me find my own identity," Moore says. "I think for an African-American to go back to Africa is a powerful experience. It's like going to Israel if you're Jewish."

The two men didn't discuss questions of identity much, Moore says, but the struggles were always there, just beneath the surface. There were moments when they'd poke fun at each other, and snippets of private truth would emerge. On one occasion, Moore and Obama were hanging out in a dorm—early on in their friendship—when the subject of names came up. "What kind of name is Barry Obama—for a brother?" Moore asked with a grin. "Actually, my name's Barack Obama," he replied. "That's a very strong name," Moore told him. Obama responded that he didn't want to have to explain his name. "Barry" was just a way of simplifying things—a small compromise to smooth the way in society.

Moore knew then that Obama had been called Barry for a very long time, but he made a point to call him Barack anyway. He did this because he liked the name, he says, but also because he respected anything African. "It was a time when we were very conscious and he actually appreciated that I called him Barack," Moore says. A handful of people, mostly close friends, would use Barack and Barry interchangeably.

But Obama had friends from many different backgrounds. Other friends at Occidental, including his freshman roommate, Paul Carpenter, never heard Obama called Barack at all. At times, he was still asking to be called Barry. Anne Howells, who taught him Introduction to Literary Theory in the winter semester of 1980, had noticed Obama's full name on the enrollment list of about 15 students. She was curious about it, wondering if it was a Hawaiian name. But when she went around the room asking each student how he or she would like to be called, Obama answered "Barry."