earn (one's) wings

To prove one's merit and skill. I never thought much of Stu, but he really earned his wings this week with how well he handled the merger.

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Pushpa	-	Indian, Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Nepali
Herschel	-	Yiddish
Gemma	['dʒemə]
Joon	joon	Korean
Daren	DER-ən, DAR-ən	English
Krikor	-	Armenian