What's in a Name?

 

The act of naming is significant. It is a powerful act. At the same time to name is to establish an identity, perhaps to claim or to evoke the qualities that go with the name. Think of all the time and energy we invest in choosing the name of a baby, even when we name that child after a relative. To name is to hope for a future, to remember a person, to claim a connection. The Bible implicitly reinforces this idea in a number of passages. Adam begins his act of establishing dominion over the earth by naming the animals, and there are countless tales of the naming of Biblical heroes.

Grammatically, a name is a noun, specifically a proper noun. At the same time, names have an adjectival quality. Cognitively a name compels you to free-associate, to search your mind for references or associations that help you find a connection. Think of the expression, “the face is familiar but I can’t quite place the name.” Implicitly we are suggesting that a name belongs with something but not just a person or thing: that it connects back to a location, or an association.

A name may also be a legacy, a gesture of hope, or it may be the capstone of an act of creation: our chance to entice all that may read the name into entering into the world we have created. Read my story, it says, or visit my business. Aside from naming children, our most frequent opportunity to name things arises when we as adults name the product of our work, and it is here that we go hog wild. Often business names reflect an expression of personality: a snarky, punning take on the purpose of the business: the bakery called Bread Zepplin, the local deli called the Garden of Eatin, the liquor store called Planet of the Grapes, the coffee shop called Central Perk, or the tackle shop called Master Baits. But there are other times when the cognitive process of the namer is just not clear.

Clearly among my quirks is an interest (my family would say obsession) with the names of things. I am not talking here of a casual noticing of a name. I mean a stop-dead-in-your-tracks-pondering. It is another instance of me becoming what my sons describe as verklempt (overcome or choked with emotion in Yiddish.)These are the names of things that leave me wondering why, oh why? Why did the store owner, the writer, the artist choose this particular name? What qualities did she intend to evoke? Or put another way, as my son would say, really?

On a recent day, for example, I was surfing the internet looking for a driving school for my son. There are a large number of schools in the area, many of them with names chosen to establish connection to a particular area or person: Gotham Driving School, or Mr. Luis’ Driving School (though Attila’s Driving School has me worried.) These names do not provoke my curiosity or interest. But then there are those that have the kinds of names that send me into a tail spin of trying to parse the riddle of what someone was thinking. What did the namer hope to establish?

Here are some of the names that stopped me short along with their immediate associations.

Safe and Sane Driving School (as if all others are unsafe and insane, or perhaps most students are unsafe and insane.)

Progressive Driving School (as opposed to the regressive driving school? Is this school for liberals only?)

Solutions Driving School (who would opt for the Problems Driving School? Or is this a chemical solution?)

Two Ways Driving School (does this suggest that there are only two ways to learn to drive? Is this the hard way or the easy way? Do we need to learn both? Or is this driving skills only for two way streets? Or perhaps it covers both driving forward and reverse?)

Mole Driving School (this one is slightly upsetting. It is my understanding that moles are sightless? Is this a driving school for the blind, or perhaps it is an underground driving school.)

Perhaps, I reassure myself, it doesn’t really matter. Perhaps a name is merely what graffitists and computer scientists would simply call a tag. Shakespeare alludes to this when he writes, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Still, I am stuck on names. Are you with me? Do you think it makes a difference? If not consider this one last thought: “There are women named Faith, Hope, Joy, and Prudence. Why not Despair, Guilt, Rage, and Grief? It seems only right. 'Tom, I'd like you to meet the girl of my dreams, Tragedy.' These days, Trajedi.” (George Carlin)