What's your name, little girl, what's your name?

Have you ever noticed that once you start thinking about something, you are reminded of it wherever you go? I’m not talking about when you can’t stop thinking about a person you know, or a food you crave, but an idea.

A few weeks ago, Rick, Carina and I somehow ended up talking about our own names. Do you feel connected to your name? Could you change your name? Does your name define you? I say no. My name is Jessica. To me it rings like a John Smith name. There were three Jessica’s in my grade one class and four in my camp cabin one year. When I think about myself and what being myself means, I do not think of my name as a key component. When I refer to myself in my head I don’t use my name. I could live without it, I think.

I felt compelled to find out how other people feel about this and discovered something that perhaps is not too surprising. Those people with unique names, like D’Arcy and Clara, do feel as though their names and their selves are connected. Those with average and typical names are more nonchalant about the importance of their name.

I recently learned in Art History class about an artist named Magritte. You may have seen his legendary work called “The Treachery of Images”, featuring a perfectly formed pipe with the words “ceci n’est pas une pipe” or “this is not a pipe” written neatly below it. A surrealist, Magritte was questioning our tendency to equate names of things with the things themselves. We define objects before really understanding what they are by placing them into neat categories. Names. Language. He reveals the arbitrariness of language and insists that we come to know things as they are and not as how they are called.

Know me before you know Jessica.

The straw that broke the camels back was a post by Alan, an English teacher in Taiwan. He wrote about the ease with which the Taiwanese select and change their English names. I would doubt that changing their Taiwanese names is as simple, but apparently you can just show up one day to school and announce that your name is no longer Sally, but is now Pumpernickel. Easy as pie. The weirdest thing is that Alan used the title I had considered using for this post idea before I posted it. But then, I thought it was a bit cliché. ;)

Are you attached to your name?