Names and the Truth of Things

"If names are not correct, language will not be in accordance with the truth of things." -Confucius

In the novel The Poisonwood Bible, which was introduced in my previous post, the significance of names is a recurring theme. In the language of the Congo, the nation in which the story is set, various words, such as muntu and nommo, have multiple meanings. Essentially, these words are names-- the names of creatures, objects, concepts. In the same way a single word can have many connotations, the name of a person arguably shapes his or her identity. Adah explores this idea in the following passage.

"A child is not alive, claims Nelson, until it is named. I told him this helped explain a mystery for me. My sister and I are identical twins, so how is it that from one single seed we have two such different lives? Now I know. Because I am named Adah and she is named Leah."

Though it's evident that Adah and Leah's different names don't entirely explain their separate selves, the passage got me thinking. Names do certainly influence how we view others and, to an extent, how we feel about ourselves. I can attest to the latter, considering I've chosen to change my name numerous times. My birth name is Kathryn with a 'y', a fact I point out often. Why does the spelling matter to me so much? Perhaps because it distinguishes me from the multitude of Katherines in the world. I've never felt like I fit in with everyone else, so to me, the 'y' in my name always seemed to reflect that distinction.

Yet I was never called Kathryn. From the day my blue eyes opened to this world, my parents called me Katy, a nickname consistent with the appropriately alternate spelling of my full name. But in kindergarten, my stubborn six-year-old self realized just how many Katy/Katies (mostly Katies) there were. Suddenly, a silent, secret letter was not enough. I needed an audible difference to set me apart from those who shared my name. In what I then saw as a stroke of genius or divine intervention, perhaps, a name drifted down from some holy place and landed at my little feet. Kathy.

Never mind that it's associated with middle-aged soccer moms or visibly graying librarians. To my kindergarten self, it was beautiful. The addition of just one tiny letter transformed my former name into something unique. It was as if I added brightly-colored laces to an old, worn pair of shoes-- the name was essentially the same, but infinitely better and more expressive of my individual self.

The name stuck for a solid five years, but upon entering junior high, I realized that no one my age had my name. No one. And not because it was strange but cool, like 'Montana' or 'Juliet', but because it was a "mom name".

Suddenly, I became ashamed of the identity I had once hand-selected for myself. I wanted simple. I wanted short. Just a single syllable, easy to spell, to pronounce, and most importantly, "normal". Kate fit the bill. I adopted that identity, and it's remained mine ever since.

It's funny-- I often divide the timeline of my life by my names. I almost see myself as a different person in each name phase. Katy was cute and quiet, Kathy was awkward and shy, Kate is...still evolving.

Why do our names have such an influence on how we perceive ourselves? And are others' judgments of us actually influenced by our names? No doubt you've contemplated whether someone does or does not look like a Joanne, or a Robert, or an Emily, but how does one determine what exactly constitutes the owner of a certain name? Are names not merely sounds, strings of letters?

Adah would argue otherwise. As she says, "I prefer Ada as it goes either way, like me. I am a perfect palindrome...For my twin sister's name I prefer the spelling Lee, as that makes her--from the back-court position from which I generally watch her--the slippery length of muscle that she is."

Maybe, as Adah/Ada suggests, there are more to names than just their aesthetic appeal. Maybe names do correlate to their subject's identity, to the "truth of things", as Confucius puts it.