What's In A Name

❝'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself. (2.2.38-49)❞

This year, more than 120 million babies will be born on earth. Those who survive will sooner or later undergo the initiation process of receiving a name. At one time anthropologists thought that some groups of people were so "primitive" and unorganized that they didn't use names. We now know that the anthropologists were mistaken and that the idea came about because research fieldworkers were not able to get inside the minds of the people well enough to understand the customs and taboos that required that names be kept secret from strangers. The truth is that names are a part of every culture and that they are of enormous importance both to the people who receive names and to the societies that give them.

Despite their universality, there is a great deal of difference from one culture to another in how names are given. Among most preliterate peoples, names are determined according to very definite and specific rules. Generally, in cultures with a keen sense of ancestry, children get their names from the totems and family trees of their parents. In some cultures, names are taken from events which happen during the pregnancy of the mother or shortly after the birth of the child, and in others, names are divined through magic and incantation. In some cases, the name given at birth is only the first of several names a person will bear throughout life. When this happens, the new names are given either to mark important milestones in life or to ward off evil spirits by tricking them into thinking that the person with the old name has disappeared. Regardless of when, why, or how often it happens, the giving and receiving of a name is an event of major importance. Quite frequently the significance of names is emphasized by elaborate rituals that almost always have deep religious meaning.

 One rather dramatic example of this is the naming ceremony of the Khasi people in Africa. Among these people, children are named within a day of their births. The ceremony begins when a relative of the child prepares a sacrifice by pouring rice meal into small dishes and filling a gourd with rice liquor. After an invocation, the relative pours the liquor into the rice meal while reciting a list of names. The name the child will have is the one the relative recites during the pouring of the drop of liquor that takes the longest to leave the bottle. Once the name is "discovered" in this way, they anoint the baby's feet with the meal-and-liquor paste, and the parents and relatives eat the paste. Then, after swinging it over the baby three times, the father leaves the group to bury the placenta.

The gore of a placenta flying through the air and the mess of a baby smeared with rice paste may not correspond very well with western notions of what a ceremony is supposed to be. Yet, an objective observer might well remark that some of the things Christians do in christening rites, which are generally considered solemn and dignified, are not all that different from some of the elements of the Khasi naming ceremony. This is especially true of the baptismal ceremony of the Catholic Church. Although in the eyes of the Church the rite of baptism is not primarily a naming ceremony, the giving of the baptismal, or Christian, name is certainly a part of it. In the Catholic baptismal ceremony, the priest meets the parents, godparents, and baby at the door of the church building, and the first thing he says is, "What name do you give your child?" After the parents answer this and other questions, the priest invites the parents and godparents to trace the sign of the cross on the child's forehead, and then they move into the main body of the building for the rest of the christening. After a reading from one of the gospels, special prayers, and the recitation of part of the Litany of the Saints, the priest anoints the child with holy oils. Then follows the pouring of water on the child's forehead three times, which technically constitutes the actual baptism. A second anointing with oil occurs, and the parents receive a white garment to put on the child. The priest then lights a ceremonial candle and presents it to the father or godfather on behalf of the child. The ceremony concludes with additional prayers (Rite of Baptism).

Modern Christian theologians speak of baptism as a sacrament of initiation into the church, and in this sense it serves basically the same purpose as naming ceremonies in preliterate societies. In Christian thought, baptism is a cleansing or reclaiming of the soul of the child, and this takes place under the name the child receives in the ceremony. Among preliterate peoples, the act of naming is a bestowal of a soul on the one who receives the name.

In either case, the effect is the same: the person who receives a name thereby receives an identity and a place within the society. This bestowal of name and identity is a kind of symbolic contract between the society and the individual.

 Seen from one side of the contract, by giving a name the society confirms the individual's existence and acknowledges its responsibilities toward that person. The name differentiates the child from others; thus, the society will be able to treat and deal with the child as someone with needs and feelings different from those of other people. Through the name, the individual becomes part of the history of the society, and, because of the name, his or her deeds will exist separate from the deeds of others.

In industrialized countries, parents must register a child's birth and record the child's name. In this way, the child's name becomes part of the public record of the society. The birth certificate the parents receive when they register the child's birth becomes a kind of ticket or passport to some of the essential services the society offers its members. For example, the public schools in the United States require that prospective students present birth certificates when they register for classes. If a child doesn't have a birth certificate for some reason, the school system feels no obligation toward the child until the parents produce a birth certificate or provide some other type of verification of the child's legal name and date of birth. As mentioned earlier, the symbolic name contract requires that the society recognize and provide for the needs of individuals, at least in a general way. From time to time, however, certain individuals and groups feel that the society has failed to live up it its part of the bargain, and they sometimes respond by abandoning the name and identity under which they entered into the original contract. Such was the case in recent years with the radical Black Muslim organization. These people believed that the social and political system in the United States had failed them and that racist attitudes and practices of American culture had victimized and oppressed them. They responded by adopting a new culture that they thought would better meet their needs, and, in the process, they changed their "white" names to Black Muslim names.

As seen from the other side of the name contract, by receiving a name, the individual implicitly accepts membership in the society and agrees to follow its rules and customs. In the United States, the practice of within our penal system of forcing convicts to exchange their names for prison numbers emphasizes this aspect of the naming bargain. In doing this, society says, in effect, that the convicts have broken the contract with civilization that their names imply. They have separated themselves from the community by breaking the rules; thus, they are no longer entitled to the identity and social privileges their names give them. Certain relatively closed societies within the larger society use a similar sort of practice when a member breaks the rules and has to be expelled. For example, some college fraternities and sororities strike an expelled member's name from the rolls with indelible ink to make sure future generations of members will not discover who their ex-sibling was and, presumably, not follow his or her example.

 In the closed society of the Virginia Military Academy, where conformity to rules and time-honored traditions is a sacred obligation, they mark the conferral of non-identity on cadets who violate the school's honor code with a mini-pageant that rivals the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. As Frank Rose describes it in Real Men, "Once [the cadet] has gone--in the very early hours of the morning, as it usually happens--his departure is announced by a low drum roll that grows steadily in intensity until it is broken by a boom on the bass drum. As the drum rolls and the intermittent booms continue, the members of the honor court march through the arch and up to the topmost stoop. From there, they work their way around and down, their president pronouncing as they go the name of the disgraced cadet, the charge on which he was convicted, and the admonition never to utter his name again." From a strictly objective viewpoint, blotting out a person's name in a club registry or forbidding cadets to mention a name in the future does absolutely nothing to change either the person or what he or she did. However, the link between name and identity is so strong and the importance of the symbolic name bargain so great that we genuinely feel that actions of this type somehow have the desired effect of making the person a non-entity.

The names parents choose for their children also reflect the relationship between name and identity that the symbolic contract seals. This is particularly true of the names of twins, for whom the establishment of a unique identity is often difficult. Parents tend to think of twins as a single person who happens to have two bodies, and they often choose names for them that reinforce the idea that the twins have a single, shared identity. Robert Plank, who studied names of twins, discovered that the names fit into three patterns and that the names in two of the patterns show unmistakable similarity. The most common pattern, which occurred in 62 of the cases Plank studied, was the use of names that begin with the same letter. This included such names as Richard and Robert (Ricky and Robby), Joseph and Judith (Joey and Judy), Louise and Louisa, as well as such names as Paul and Paula and Patrick and Patricia. The second pattern involved names that had different first letters but where similar in sound, rhythm, or rhyme. Such sets of names as Tracy and Stacy, Billy Joe and Penny Sue accounted for 17 of the sets of names. Finally, Plank found that only 21 of the sets of names were different enough from one another to be considered dissimilar. Identical twins, who are always of the same sex and who look so much alike people have trouble telling them apart, fare worse than fraternal twins in the similarity of their names. For, as Plank found, almost 90 of the identical twins had similar names compared to roughly only 75 of the fraternals. The point of all of this is not that parents of twins are vindictive toward their children and purposely give them names that will confuse other people. Instead, the point is that the parents instinctively feel that their twins share an identity and hence should "share" a name.

 Sometimes, though, it seems that parents are unable to resist the temptation for humor when it comes to naming twins. For example, a woman in London named her twin daughters Kate and Duplicate. When a clergyman refused to baptize the second one, the newspapers picked up the mother's cause and editorialized in support of her right to give her children any names she wanted. A couple in Dubuque, Iowa, named their twins Bing and Bang.  Dick Gregory, the comedian and civil rights leader, combined his two callings by giving his twins the middle names of Inte and Gration (Smith).

We find an awareness of the link between name and identity in everyday speech, particularly in the words we use in making introductions and in identifying ourselves when we answer the telephone. When we introduce ourselves, we usually say something like, "Hi. I'm John Smith," and when we answer the phone we probably say something like, "Hello. This is Susan Johnson speaking." Occasionally, before a group of strangers, we might use a more distant form and say, "My name is Carol Jones, and I work . . .," but we almost always reserve this style for situations where our function or job is more important than who we really are. On the other hand, we would probably never answer the phone by saying, "Hello. My name is Pat Wilson," nor would we introduce someone else with an expression like, "Mother, this person's name is Beth." The reason we instinctively choose "I am . . ." or "This is . . ." is that we intuitively associate our identity and the identity of the person we are introducing with a name.

The same idea applies when our name is mispronounced. Most people take great care to make sure they pronounce another person's name correctly, especially in introductions. The reason for this concern is that people generally resent the mispronunciation of their name because mispronunciation amounts to a distortion of their identity. Accidental distortions are annoying, but mispronunciations and distortions of a name on purpose are sizable insults, especially if they result in unflattering puns. Martin Luther used this tactic to belittle one of his enemies, Dr. Eck, by purposely writing his name as Dreck, which means filth. Freud saw psychological meaning in the accidental distortion of a person's name. He noticed that aristocrats seemed to mispronounce their doctors' names more often than other people did. He interpreted this as one way the aristocracy had of keeping physicians in their place. Doctors might have power over the life and death of their patients, but they couldn't compete with the aristocrats in political influence and social prestige. By unconsciously distorting the doctors' names, the aristocracy said, in effect, that the doctors were not important enough for them to bother pronouncing their names correctly.

Shakespeare used this idea in King John. In the first scene, Philip Faulconbridge learns that he is really the bastard son of Richard the Lion-Hearted, hence the son of a king. King John, Richard's brother, changes Philip's name to Richard Plantagenet and grants him the honor of a prince and nephew. In a soliloquy following the name change, the new Richard says, "And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;/For new-made honour doth forget men's names" (I, i, 186-187). Freud and Shakespeare both recognized that the relationship between name and identity is so strong that the misrepresentation of a name amounts to a misrepresentation of the person (Smith). The sense of personal identity and uniqueness that a name gives us is at the heart of why names interest us and why they are important to us as individuals and to our society as a whole. In spite of their importance, though, most people know very little about names and about the effects they have on us an on our children in everyday life. In a very real sense, we are consumers of names, and we have a need and right to know about the psychological, magical, legal, religious, and ethnic aspects of our names.

In conclusion, one of the most important aspects of a person is their name; not necessarily what it represents based on some religion or random dead language study, but how it represents you as the person that you are or the importance that you hold within your group of peers. So how important is your name to you?

 

 



Benefits of Keeping a Journal

Some of the most influential people in history kept detailed journals of their lives. Those journals served two purposes: a permanent record for posterity, and cathartic release for the people writing them. Even if you don't think you need either, keeping a journal has great benefits you can enjoy immediately. Here's why you might want to sit down regularly to jot down your thoughts.

Even if you don't think there'll ever be a documentary that uses your journal for flavor commentary, there are plenty of reasons to keep one for yourself. Maybe you want to leave something behind for your children that tells your story and what you accomplished. Maybe you're more practical, and want a way to harness your creativity. Maybe you just want the cathartic release that comes with regular writing. Whatever it is, these are all great reasons.

Writing can do wonders for your health. Beyond keeping your creative juices flowing—a separate topic we'll get to shortly—regular writing can give you a safe, cathartic release valve for the stresses of your daily life. Some have discussed some of those mental and emotional benefits of writing before, from the angle of creative writing—but you don't have to write fiction to get them. For example, keeping an awesomeness journal can do wonders for your self-esteem. Not only does regular writing make you feel good, it helps you re-live the events you experienced in a safe environment where you can process them without fear or stress.

In fact, there's so much data about the mental and emotional benefits of journaling that counselors, social workers, and therapists often encourage their patients to do it. This study from the journal Advances in Psychiatric Treatment is a great experiment, and a solid summary of current research on the topic. In the piece, the researchers noted that 15–20 minutes on 3–5 occasions was enough to help the study participants deal with traumatic, stressful, or otherwise emotional events. It's been specifically effective in people with severe illnesses, like cancer, for example. In fact, the practice is so well regarded, there's a Center for Journal Therapy dedicated to the mental health benefits of regular journaling, both in therapeutic and personal settings.

 

It's not just what you write about though. How you write plays a role as well. This University of Iowa study showed that journaling about stressful events helped participants deal with the events they experienced. The key, however, was to focus on what you were thinking and feeling as opposed to your emotions alone. In short, you get the best benefits of journaling when you're telling your personal story, not just writing about your feelings on their own. It's a great example of how telling your own personal story can make a huge difference in your well being.

The creative benefits of keeping a journal are also well documented. You've likely heard that the best way to get better at writing is to just keep doing it. That's true, but the benefits go deeper than just crafting better sentences. For example, regular writing can help you learn to process and communicate complex ideas effectively. It can also help you memorize important information, and brainstorm new ideas. In other words, writing about your experiences not only helps you process them, it helps you see opportunities that may not have been apparent at first glance. It also helps you learn to break down complex experiences into relevant, useful bits of information organized coherently.

Even if you don't think anything special has happened to you, the very act of keeping a journal can help you brainstorm. How often have you caught yourself writing about something that seems dull on the surface, but led you to a spiderweb of other thoughts, ideas, and memories as you were processing it? Regular writing opens the door to those opportunities every time you sit down.

Even If You Don't Do Creative Work, Regular Writing Has Practical Benefits. Regular writing can be functional, as well, and serve as a reminder of mistakes you've made, accomplishments you're proud of, and great moments you want to remember. For example, keeping a work diary can serve as a track record of mistakes and successes. That written record can come in handy later when you're feeling down, but they can also help you right your personal ship when you're feeling lost. Pick up your work diary and look back over the things you did really well with—you may be able to pick out a pattern of things you want to follow, career-wise. Similarly, those achievements and awesome moments don't just boost your self-esteem, they give you great justification for a raise or promotion when it comes time to talk to the boss about an increase. You don't have to be a creative worker to appreciate looking back over the things you did well, and the things you need to work on. Seeing your own mistakes before they're pointed out to you is a great thing, and documenting your achievements makes sure they're never overlooked.

Regular writing can apply to more than just work, too. Keeping a journal is a great way to build better habits, as it forces you to be aware of your actions and behaviors. If you're looking to watch what you eat, keeping a food diary is a great way to stay paying closer attention—one that's been proven to help people eat more healthfully. Similarly, just writing down positive things that happened to you or tracking your mood can help you identify good patterns in your life that are repeatable that you should make time for—not to mention things that make you feel bad or throw you off your game that should be eliminated.

Which Medium You Should Choose, and Why

Once you've decided to keep a journal, your next decision is the medium to use for it. You have plenty of options, and what works for one person won't work for another. You have to choose the one that works best for you. Here are a few options:

Paper Notebooks

If you love the feeling of physically writing down your thoughts, a paper notebook may be the best option for you. There's really nothing like setting pen to paper, and here are some paper notebook suggestions to get you started! Keeping a paper journal gives you total physical control over your writing, and it gives you the most privacy, since there's little chance of your journal being "hacked" or "lost" when a service shuts down or is compromised. However, paper journaling means you don't have backups in case something happens to your work—theft, fire, or just a lost backpack means your journal is gone forever.

If you don't want just a plain empty notebook, the Bullet Journal productivity method fits in nicely if you're already using your paper notebook for to-dos and notes, and the previously mentioned Sorta has unique notebooks with removable pages. If you're afraid you're too busy to journal, consider the Five-Minute Journal, a paper notebook that's sets you up with a motivational quote, then gives you daily writing prompts to fill out like "Today I'm grateful for," "What would make today great?" and "3 Great Things that happened today."

Journaling and Diary Apps

If you just can't separate yourself from your phone or laptop, there are plenty of apps that promise privacy and security as well as a great writing environment. Here are a few, but some of the stand-outs include Penzu, an all-online private journaling webapp with mobile apps, and Day One, a good looking iOS/OS X app that's location-aware, lets you add photos, and more. If you prefer free and open-source, try RedNotebook. It's a fantastic wiki-style journaling tool that's cross-platform.

 

Of course, you don't have to use apps at all. You could just keep an encrypted text file in Dropbox, use Evernote or Google Keep, or any other note-taking app you prefer. You can even roll your own custom journaling system with whatever tools you prefer, but keep in mind that the more you automate the process, the less you're actually journaling, so you don't get quite the same benefits.

 

Blogging

 

Blogging is another great way to get the benefits of journaling, regardless of whether you get started to make a name for yourself, or to just get your thoughts and feelings out in the open. Keeping a blog opens the door to the widest possible audience, but it comes with the sacrifice of privacy. If that's your preferred route, you have a wide array of tools and hosts to choose from, both free and paid.  Here you can be walked through some of the most popular blogging platforms, and even introduce some of the new contenders you may have heard of. All of them offer different looks, cater to different audiences, and are designed for different kinds of people. Whatever you choose, keeping a personal blog may not come with writing prompts or fancy mobile apps (although some do), but they can come with community, and option to share your story with the world. For example, this is my public blog, but I do have a secret blog that hides my identity.

 

 

However you choose to keep your journal, there are clear benefits to doing it. You don't have to be Kurt Cobain, Isaac Newton, Abraham Lincoln, Andy Warhol, Leonardo Da Vinci, or any other famous artist, creative, politician, scientist, or famous figure for your thoughts and experiences to be worthwhile. In every case, they can be a huge benefit to you, personally, and enlightening for anyone you choose to share them with.

 

I'm going to challenge myself to  spend 30 days keeping a journal. Would you like to do it with me? Let me know! We'll do it together! Share your stories/experiences/concerns (if you feel comfortable). I'll keep my readers in the know! Good Luck!!