"I grew up in a very small town in Massachusetts, and it goes without saying that there weren't many Nigerian families in that town, and a lot of people couldn't say Uzoamaka," she explains. "I came home from school one day, and I said to my mother ... 'Mommy, can you call me Zoe?' " Aduba thought it was close enough to her real name but wouldn't make people tongue-tied. Her mother wasn't having it. "Without skipping…
