Wambui was born to Mr. and Mrs. John Louis Washington of Greensboro, North Carolina in January of 1950. Her mother thought she could predict whether she was going to have a boy or a girl. She predicted that Wambui was going to be a boy. Wambui was a girl. However, her mother named her John Washington anyway. She changed the middle name from Louis to Ann. Wambui's birth name was John Ann Washington. In this podcast, Wambui tells the story of why and how she legally changed her name from John Ann Washington to Wambui Bahati and how her mother reacted.