My legal name is Just Mrugamba Nzungize. My fuller African cultural name — the one that actually spells out what each part means — is Juste Mushayija Rugamba Nzungize. Most people who know me have never heard any of that except "Nzungize," and even that one gets mangled. But almost nobody has ever asked me where any of it came from — and for most of my life, I didn't fully know either. This is that story, and why I ended up building a whole identity, and eventually a business, around a name a coach made up by accident.
JJ, then Jay
As a kid, my nickname was JJ. There was a cartoon plane on TV with that name, and it stuck — my mom started calling me it first, then everyone else followed. That was the name I answered to for most of my early childhood.
Before I moved to Texas, I wanted a new identity from Nashville, TN. I was tired of being the conversation-starter, the odd one out, having to explain a name nobody had heard before every single time — "Just," or even "Mrugamba," or even my last name. So when a teacher asked the class what everyone wanted to go by, I said Jay. I wanted to fit in — everything about me up to that point had already marked me as different. Once I got to Texas, that's what stuck: Jay is how I've represented myself ever since.
How a coach turned my last name into Gēzzy
Playing sports growing up, people always found their own way to say my last name, since almost nobody said "Nzungize" right. Most attempts landed somewhere near "zoon-gee-zay" or "zoon-geeze" — the "g" and the easy sound at the end were the parts people could hold onto. One of my favorite middle school coaches, Coach Roberts, started calling me Gezzy from that. It just stuck, and it eventually became the name I go by across social media.
What that name actually gave me was bigger than a nickname. I wasn't ashamed of being different anymore — people accepted the person I was. I'll draw the comparison honestly: it's a similar pattern to how Kanye West turned "Ye" into Yeezy, or how OhGeesy of Shoreline Mafia built a stage name distinctly his own out of something that started as just a sound. Taking a name other people gave you, on their terms, and turning it into something you own on yours.
Why the "3" instead of the "e"
When I turned Gezzy into my actual handles, I spelled it G3zzy — a "3" where the "e" would go. I know it's not spelled the way it sounds, and people mispronounce it. That used to bother me. Now it doesn't, because it gives me a story to tell — and I genuinely enjoy when someone asks what the name means and why it's spelled that way. I used to run from small talk. Now that question is one of my favorite ones to get.
Someone once told me it's important to identify yourself and let people know you by the way you want to be known — with intention, not by accident. That idea is the whole reason the spelling matters to me. Three shows up across history as a number of completion and transformation — the Christian Trinity, the philosophical arc of thesis into conflict into resolution, birth-life-death, mind-body-spirit, past-present-future. I'm not superstitious about numbers having power on their own. But the pattern is real: transformation is rarely instant. You begin somewhere, you're shaped by what you go through, and you come out someone new. That's the shape of my own name, too — which I only found out by actually looking into what it meant.
What my full name actually means
Once I finally looked into what my own name meant — piece by piece — it changed how I carry it.
Juste is the original, French form of "Just" — the root word for justice: truth-seeking, fair. Mushayija means an elder — someone who possesses wisdom. Rugamba literally means war, but in a naming sense it means mighty warrior, strong-hearted. And Nzungize translates to "you have caused me to roam" or "make me travel far." Practically, it marks a child born while the family was traveling, in exile, or away from their true home — "born on the move." The moral meaning behind it is the real weight: remember your roots and your Creator. No matter how far you travel or roam across the world, you must always know where you come from and who made you.
Put together, my full name carries a lifelong calling: though born to wander far from home, I will always remember my roots and my Creator. I will meet life's battles with the heart of a warrior, but fight with justice, humility, and integrity. My goal isn't simply to win — it's to become the kind of man whose character outlives his achievements. A wise leader who guides others with truth, conviction, and compassion.
I didn't know any of that when I was a kid answering to JJ, or when I picked "Jay" in a classroom to feel less different, or when Coach Roberts started calling me Gezzy. But once I learned it, I understood why holding my name — all of it — as something sacred mattered. If your name carries that much resonance, it's worth embracing. It can shape who you become, whether you know the details or not.
Gēzzy, defined
From everything in that journey, here's the definition I eventually wrote for the name I built for myself:
Why this matters for personal branding, not just for me
This is the part I actually want people to take from this, beyond my own story: your name is allowed to evolve as your identity does, and you get to choose, on purpose, which version of yourself you build in public. JJ was given to me. Jay was me trying to fit in. Gezzy started as a mispronunciation. Gēzzy is the only one I actually built — the only one with a definition I wrote myself, with meaning I chose on purpose instead of meaning that just happened to me.
That's the whole premise behind Gateway Growth, too. Content is your credibility, outreach is your engine, and clarity — including the clarity of knowing what you're actually called and why — is the foundation that makes both work. Give things meaning on purpose. Move with intentionality. That's the whole philosophy, and it started with a name.