1/18/13
What the hell is in a name? What could be more misleading than allowing a compilation of vowels and consonants represent your soul. For most, a name is bestowed upon people before they even achieve the cognitive function to form a sentence, let alone pronounce their brand new moniker. Names are an age-old concept but something tells me they're not going out of style anytime soon.
If babies could talk seconds after making The Exit, delivery rooms would sound very different. The smiling mother would coo, "Honey, let's call him Lance.” Then the well-spoken baby could make his new voice heard: “First of all, how many balls do you see? And I'll be damned if I'm responsible for the drugs in my bloodstream.”
Sometimes I wish I could remember the conversation in Omaha 23 years back. Mostly because I want to hear my Mom shoot down my Dad's suggestions: Gunar (goo-gnar) or Thor. With the first one I dodged a bullet. However as odd as Thor sounds, I actually could have dealt with it seeing as it’s now the name I've bestowed on my Subaru. Everywhere I drive, I ride lightning.
Like all marital disputes, Mom won out with an inconvenient solution. We'll name him Matthew. Her maiden name was Matthews; she comes from a highly respected family of Irish-Catholic Gingers. The catch was that she, being a nitpicky English major, couldn't bear to watch me write M-a-t-t on every paper. Too many unnecessary letters in that scenario, and using one T was just out of the question.
"Yes," she said and tilted her late 80’s freckled face, "we'll just call him Mac."
This proved to be an awesome name but it didn't make life easier. The first day of classes for 20 years were always tough because I had to endure the tribulations of a misnomer. Teacher calls role and I had to be Matthew until I mustered the nerve to reveal my real title. After a while I just signed all papers and tests with Mac and let the grossly underpaid sap figure it out.
I wish I could tell you that I was named after Machiavelli. That my Dad read me The Prince every night before bed because we were the friendliest damn communists in Mill Valley.
He has the luck of being named after the great Alec Guinness. My father apparently lived his first 5 years on earth without a sense of humor. This made it hard from him to understand jokes until first grade. Said affliction caused Dad to believe he was the result of his mother, Alec Guinness, and a bottle of Chilean red. I heard that story last year and let me tell you, it explains a lot.
Nonetheless names should stick. When people go about making names for themselves, I take issue. A prime example would be Ron Artest, recently self-titled, Metta World Peace. Seems reasonable enough that he's gone spiritually into the power of love, but he plays in the NBA. Not only that but in the few times I've seen him play, he's gotten into foul trouble. So am I to take it as a form of social commentary? Is it displaying a foreign relations opinion when World Peace is fouled out because he jammed his Metta fist into Dirk's lil Nowitski?
So what really is in a name? If a name is just for the purposes of identification then why not keep an organized sequential system that makes people, places, and things a series of A1, A2, A3 etc? If I were to be named BnzFp53, people would look at me funnier than they would if I was labeled Gunar.
However arbitrary the process of naming might be, a name is an important thing. It’s made to be the anchor of your character to which others may tie the impressions you’ve made. For some reason, some names invoke reactions while others do not. It’s thanks to that intangible reasoning that I’m employed these days. Words carry weight…Period.
The next time you give birth, rescue a stray cat, or discover a new species, try to make the name fit the being. And please, don’t name under the influence…unless it’s glorious and totally holds up the morning after.
