Have you ever wondered
what’s in a name? Or do names just pass you by as if they are part of the
wallpaper? I am the wall paper type …well up until just a few minutes ago when
the thought about names came to me. I was just looking about the room and it dawned
on me that everything in the room, outside the windows and into the world has a
name. And that brought back the memory of my husband (at the time boyfriend)
commenting why I gave everything he gave me a name.
Well I did not have an
answer for him and I may not have an answer for you either as to why but the
most sense it makes is so that we as humans can distinguish between things,
people and places. All nouns have names. What brought about the smile to my face
was the thought of Dr. Seuss’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 from The Cat in the Hat. The
name of no name, the name that just came the name that was just given to a pair
just like that. Sorry I can get carried away. But to understand a name is to
understand its origin and the meaning behind it.
If we look at a baby
name book we can find all the meanings of the most commons names. Elizabeth -
next to God, Michael – who is like God etc. You get the idea. These being of
course Christian examples. If we investigate other cultures and names we may
find people have given a name not for what it means but given a name to match
the spirit of the child, to match the personality. This is how many from our
native North American culture have been named or have given names. I so love
the idea of being named after truly who I am. Funny though, I may have gone my
whole life without as I still feeling I am not fully there yet.
But we subdivide into multiple
levels of names. Roses are all roses but then there are many different
varieties such as tea roses and climbing roses and long stem and then in that
we even give names to the more divided grouping to become the individual such
as Woman, Martha Washington, Empress of the Garden and so on and so forth. But
still what is in that name? Why do we name everything?
Can you imagine if we
did not? What would our communication look like? It might be just a jumble of gestures,
or a fragment of speech, even a disconnected gathering of both but would we be
able to communicate our wants need and desires (that are even labeled and
named), would we be like we are now? We freely communicate using words and body
language and in those communications we use names to label what we are describing
or what we have done or where we have been and who we have been with. Now back
to Thing 1 and Thing 2, what if they have been given different names? What if
they were the same but not called who they are? Would the story still be the
same for us? I would think not for me any ways as I have an expectation from Seuss
that leads me to believe I am going to hear crazy names and tongue twisting
poetry that will make all ages giggle. So let’s look at something a little more
complex. Toes…..that’s right our toes. They are named a simple and easily said word.
It is not a proper noun so it get no special attention like capitalization in a
sentence it is just toes. A word we have come to accept as the name for this
body part. We all have them in some form or the other to some degree so we just
accept that a toe is a toe is a foot with toes. But here is the twist, what if
our toes, were in fact, not named toes but the name kumquats was given to them
instead? Would we be laughing at such a great name for a body part or would we
just accept the name for what it is….the name of a body part and give it
respect?
As my children giggle
behind me reading over my shoulder, giggling at my rhyming Seuss and me
renaming toes to a fruit I come to the conclusion that names matter. They
matter as a simple word that delineates a part of something to a name that is
given to the grandest thing on the planet…a baby….life….the world…so the next
time you use words please choose them wisely and give a small thought to the
origin and to why something was named that name.
1.
