MEET Jesse Tawhiao-Wardlaw.

The St Kilda spearhead has made a conscious decision to publicly re-embrace her birth name, after years of simplifying her surname for the football public.

Pronounced "tah-fee-ah-oh" (the "wh" in Te Reo Māori is like an "f" sound in English), the 26-year-old now feels comfortable and confident enough to reintroduce herself to the football world.

"It's the name on my birth certificate. When I first got drafted (in 2018), I dropped it just to Wardlaw. I wanted to keep it simple. 

"[Tawhiao] is a pretty important name for me, so I didn't want to cause any confusion or have anyone mispronounce it in my early days after getting drafted, so a decision I made back when I was 18.

"Now I'm 26, I'm keen to bring it back and identify with who I really am. I've matured and identity is very important to me. With the maturity comes acceptance and owning it."

Tawhiao-Wardlaw was born in New Zealand, moving to Brisbane when she was four, and said her family – who hail from the Waikato region on the north island – were excited about the name shift.

"My mum is Māori and my dad is Pākehā, which is white New Zealander. I moved to Australia when I was pretty young, but I go back to New Zealand two or three times a year because all my family is there. 

"It's really special going back and immersing myself in the culture and learning more and more from my grandparents, my cousins, my aunties and uncles. Living in Australia and growing up in Australia it can be hard to stay connected with it day-to-day, but when I do get to go back home it's really exciting for me to learn more. 

"I speak a few words here and there. I'd love to pick up Te Reo Māori (fully) one day. The language is so helpful to stay connected and incorporating it in my day-to-day life with friends or other people who know Te Reo Māori, it really helps."

She now has 83 AFLW matches under her belt, and to mark her 75th game last year (which, given the shorter AFLW seasons, is generally completed in the same time frame as an AFL 150th), her mum presented her with a Korowai cloak, decorated in white, red and black.

Tawhiao-Wardlaw also added to her tattoo collection in the off-season, with another cultural marker.

"In my culture, for big significant events, [a Korowai] gets presented and that gets carried with me for the rest of my life and at other significant events that will come up.

"[The tattoos] are moko. My uncle did this one (forearm) recently, but I've got three now. They tell a story of my family, my whakapapa (family history) where I come from, my tribe, the different family members – my mum, dad, my sister. It's so nice for me to carry with me every day and it's another way I can stay connected with my culture, being so far away from home."

Her teammates are thrilled with the name change, which in true sporting fashion, has been immediately embraced with altered nicknames.

"They were so happy, so proud and they thought I got even cooler," she said with a laugh.

"They're all trying to pronounce it right and give me new nicknames and everything. It's definitely been embraced at the club. They're going with JT-dubs or JTW.

"As I've grown up and been in the AFLW, and also outside (football), I've just been trying to figure out more about myself. I do feel very proud and confident in my skin and myself, and it's helping a lot."