It
is not know clearly when humans began using names.
Although all cultures use names as a vital tool
of identification, the naming customs vary from
people to people. Indonesians use just a single
name. On the other hand, Chinese use complex naming
techniques that involve having a different name
at different points in life, a surname and sometimes
even a generation name.
Names serve several purposes. Without
a name it would be almost impossible to call someone,
it would be very difficult to refer to other people
Just imagine, if we did not use name, instead
of saying Jack, one would have to say, that fat
red headed man who lives down the street.
Ask the question “Who am I” say the
philosophers? Meditate on this question to lead
you deeper say the gurus. A name is the easiest
way to answer this question on the superficial
level. Thus names serve as a tool of introspection
too.
The sense of personal identity and
uniqueness that a name gives us is at the heart
of why names interest us and why they are important
to us as individuals and to our society as a whole.
In spite of their importance, though, most people
know very little about names and about the effects
they have on us an on our children in everyday
life. In a very real sense, we are consumers of
names, and we have a need and right to know about
the psychological, magical, legal, religious,
and ethnic aspects of our names.
The world’s first names on
record are Adam and Eve in the beautifully named
Garden of Eden. This then was the first record
of difference in naming man and woman. What point
of guidance did the ancients use to distinguish
between male and female? That the gender of the
person is mostly held in the name is an added
advantage. We read a work of fiction. There is
never a line that says, there lived a man called
Jack who was in love with a woman called Jill.
That would sound strange.
The gender code held in a name is
utility oriented. But some cultures enabled the
class code and the country code to be included
in names. Later on, the system of naming became
a power game. Blacks were labeled niggers and
so began the subjugation of the black people by
the white. Further, society started requiring
women folk to include their father’s name
or husband’s name after their first names
so that the name would serve more of its purpose
as a tool of identity.
Jamaica Kincaid was born in 1949
as Elaine Potter Richardson on the island of Antigua.
Later, when events in her life propelled her into
a career in writing based in USA, she assumed
the name of Jamaica Kincaid so that her family
would not know that she was the writer.
"the connection I have to Africa
is the color of my skin and that doesn't seem
enough to have changed it to an African name."
As for her new name, "Jamaica is an English
corruption of what Columbus called Xaymaca."
– Jamaica Kincaid
Further, in her book “At the Bottom of the
River” she reveals,
“I . . . feel myself grow
solid and complete, my name filling up my mouth”
– Jamaica Kincaid in “At the Bottom
of the River”
Jamaica Kincaid always exhibited
an interest in the theme of names and naming.
In her work titled “My garden”, she
would showcase her skills at naming the plants
beautifully. Further, renaming is a theme in Kincaids
works both fiction and non-fiction. According
to Kincaid, renaming is a metaphor for conquest
and colonial domination. When the British colonized
the caribbeans, she felt they also held the power
to name the people and the places therein.
“I loved King Alfred. My grandfather was
named after him; his son, my uncle, was named
after King Alfred; my brother is named after King
Alfred. And so there are three people in my family
named after a man they have never met, a man who
died over ten centuries ago. The first view I
got of England then was not unlike the first view
received by the person who named my grandfather.”
Jamaica Kincaid
Rhys is another Caribbean writer, who, in her
book “In Wide Sargasso Sea” reveals
the effects of naming and the label names carry
, all the while questioning the permanence of
identity. In her book, even Coco the parrot emphasizes
the theme of names by asking “Qui est là?
Qui est là? [Who is there?]” (Sargasso25).
“Qui est là? Qui est là? [Who
is there?]” (Sargasso25).
Rhys presents Antoinette as the “Other”
to both the black and the white Jamaicans The
nun who receives Antoinette at the convent reinforces
the ability of English men to construct women’s
identities by naming them. Antoinette introduces
herself by her first name, yet the nun responds,
“You are Antoinette Cosway, that is to say
Antoinette Mason” (Sargasso 31).
“I will write my name in fire red, Antoinette
Mason, née Cosway” (Sargasso 31).
Her husband who has mixed feelings about her,
wishes to name her differently each time.
“Don’t laugh like that, Bertha.’‘My
name is not Bertha; why do you call me Bertha?’‘Because
it is a name I’m particularly fond of. I
thinkof you as Bertha.’‘It doesn’t
matter,’ she said. (Sargasso 81)
Veronica Gogg says it does matter : “In
renaming AntoinetteBertha, the husband does not
succeed in changing her, but in splittingher identity”
Smilowitz echoes this intent, claiming, “[H]e
calls her ‘Bertha,’ in an attempt
to dissociate her from her West Indian past, and
to establish her rebirth”.
Thus, we find Rhys expanding on the power British
men used to assert their racial, cultural, and
sexual dominance over the colonies by renaming
them.
“In my writing, there’s an obsession
of mine – naming, claiming, giving things
a history.” – Jamaica Kincaid
“What’s in a name? That which we
call a rose would smell as well by another name”
says the bard in the famous novel “Romeo
and Juliet”. Yet the very last names of
Romeo and Juliet proved to be more than just a
name. In as much as they stood for families in
feud, the lovers had to suffer tragedy.
Names are given not only to people but also to
places, products, chemicals, etc. While every
day life sees names as tools of identification,
in history, names are tools of marking specific
points in time, geography sees names as a way
of locating places in the map, math sees names
as something that could be substituted by alphabets
called variables, astronomy uses names to map
the sky, and language sees names in all its different
avatars. Thus naming is a universal procedure
used in the study of almost all subjects.
How did these names evolve along the
passage of time? One wonders.
The first family names came about in a number
of ways. Most often a man was named after the
place in which he lived or the work he did. Wealthy
landowners of feudal Europe drew their titles
from the man physical features of their property.
It is obvious where the English families called
Bywaters and Underwood lived. Those who worked
for the landowners took their names from their
crafts. Smith in England, Ferraro in Italy, Schmidt
in Germnay , Kowal in Poland and Kuznetsov in
Russia originated from ironworking trade.
History plays master in some occasions. After
Norman invaders from France conquered Britain,
they gave the luxuries, French names. Carter,
Wainer, Taylor and Wheeler are all still here.
The use of place names as family names began with
the nomadic movement of people. William Penn,
who took his name from a small English village,
carried it to America, and there it was given
to Pennsylvania.
A habit followed far and wide was that of adding
the word ‘son’ to the name of the
father as in Jackson, Johnson, Thomson and many
others. This ending takes the form of sen in Denmark
and Norway, nen in Finland, ez in Spain, and ski
in Poland.
The Irish used Mac for ‘son’ and
O for grandson . Thus MacBryan was the son of
Brian and O’Brien was Brian’s grandson.
Another tendency was to shorten the word ‘son’
into single letter ‘s’. John became
Jones especially in Wales. Physical features,
such as a person’s characteristics have
frequently contributed family names like Red,
Reid, Rousseau(France), Rossi (Italy) and so on.
Nations have varied in their favorite method
of name giving. The patronymic method of naming
appealed to people in Scandinavia, Wales and Ireland.
The geographic method was favored in England and
Germany. The religious method was favored in countries
with churches in the lead like Great Britain and
Italy. In many countries, a person’s first
name is given to him or her in baptism. It is
called the “Christian name”, a shortened
form of “christening name”. When the
child is given two given names, the second one
is called the middle name. Many given names come
from Greek and Latin. The greek for sun was helios;
hence Helene or Helen, “the bright and shining
girl’. The Greek for God was Theos. Hence
Theodore and Theodora, “The gifts of God”.
Religion plays a vital role in naming. The scriptures
carry names with significant meaning. God named
the first man Adam because he was made from the
dust of the ground. God changed Abram's name to
Abraham when He established the covenant of circumcision
with His chosen vessel, whose new name would mean
"father of many nations." When, God
told Abraham and Sarah they would have a son in
their old age, they laughed. Hence their son's
name was Isaac, meaning "laughter."
That was certainly a much happier choice than
Rachel's declaration of naming her last born Ben-o-ni
("son of my sorrow"). Can you imagine
going through your life with a name reminding
you that your birth killed your mother? Jacob
wisely changed his last born's name to Benjamin,
which means "son of my right hand."
In the New Testament, we find Jesus changing
the names of several people. Perhaps the most
famous would be the declaration of Simon's new
name to be Petros or Peter, which means "a
rock." At the time, the fisherman looked
more like shifting sand, but Jesus saw his potential,
and helped him live up to his new name.
In Matthew 1:21, the angel told Joseph, "[Mary]
will give birth to a son, and you are to give
him the name Jesus, because he will save his people
from their sins." Jesus is the Greek form
of the Hebrew name Joshua and both mean "the
Lord is salvation." Each name and title of
Jesus Christ in the Bible shows a glimpse of who
He is.
The Bible has provided a very large number of
given names. Daniel, David, Sarah, Jerry, Mathew,
Mark, Luke and John are all examples of Biblical
names.
We can cite similar examples from all the great
scriptures of all the great religions in the world.
A Hindu is named according to the great names
held in his scriptures. A Moslem is named according
to the tenets of his religion. Egyptians considered
names to hold the power of the person or God,
to the extent that if one knew the secret names
of the gods one could have power over them. According
to some legends Isis obtained her magical powers
by tricking Ra into revealing his secret name
to her, thus gaining access his magical knowledge.
Robert Plank, who studied names of twins, discovered
that the names fit into three patterns and that
the names in two of the patterns show unmistakable
similarity. The most common pattern, which occurred
in the cases Plank studied, was the use of names
that begin with the same letter. This included
such names as Richard and Robert (Ricky and Robby),
Joseph and Judith (Joey and Judy), Louise and
Louisa, as well as such names as Paul and Paula
and Patrick and Patricia. The second pattern involved
names that had different first letters but where
similar in sound, rhythm, or rhyme like in : Tracy
and Stacy, Billy Joe and Penny Sue.. Finally,
Plank found that only in rare conditions , were
the names different enough from one another to
be considered dissimilar.
Sigmund Freud saw psychological meaning in the
accidental distortion of a person’s name.
Aristocrats seemed to have the nasty habit of
mispronouncing their doctor’s name. Freud
views it as one way the aristocracy had of keeping
physicians in their place.
Shakespeare used this idea in King John. In the
first scene, Philip Faulconbridge learns that
he is really the bastard son of Richard the Lion-Hearted,
hence the son of a king. King John, Richard's
brother, changes Philip's name to Richard Plantagenet
and grants him the honor of a prince and nephew.
In a soliloquy following the name change, the
new Richard says,
"And if his name be George, I'll call him
Peter;/For new-made honour doth forget men's names"
(I, i, 186-187).
Freud and Shakespeare both recognized that the
relationship between name and identity is so strong
that the misrepresentation of a name amounts to
a misrepresentation of the person .
Do names have power?
The power of a name becomes clear when we contemplate
the use names can have within corporate companies
and branding. A new products name is usually chosen
to inspire or entice and can sway people by tapping
into their unconscious desires or stereotypes.
For example cars with powerful names such as Mustang
are more likely to attract rough and ready adventurous
types looking for a certain "grunt"
or power to their automobile. If that same car
was called "Pony", it would attract
less of the target audience
References : 1. http://list.haifa.ac.il/pipermail/alef/2004-January/004021.html
2. http://www.behindthename.com/articles/3.html
3 . http://www.missourireview.org/index.php?genre=Interviews&title=An+Interview+with+Jamaica+Kincaid
Annotated Bibliography of Sources:
1. http://www.missourireview.org/index.php?genre=Interviews&title=An+Interview+with+Jamaica+Kincaid
An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid
by Kay Bonetti
In this interview taken by Kay Bonetti, Jamaica
Kincaid gives us a glimpse into her world .
“I write about myself for the most part,
and about things that have happened to me. “
“I was brought up to understand that English
traditions were right and mine were wrong. Within
the life of an English person there was always
clarity, and within an English culture there was
always clarity, but within my life and culture
was ambiguity.”
About her life in the Caribbeans Jamaica has
this to say,
“In the place I'm from you don't have much
room. You have the sea. If you step on the sea,
you sink. The only thing the sea can do is take
you away. People living on a tiny island are not
expected to have deep thoughts about how they
live, their right to live.”
The relevance of this interview to this article
stems from the following line, in which Jamaica
Kincaid, the author so famously known for her
opinions on names and renaming, explains the reason
behind her own name change.
“Bonetti: So you changed your name to
disguise yourself so that you could write. How
did you pick the name Jamaica Kincaid?
Kincaid: It had no significance other than it
was useful, to protect me from things. It was
one of those things you do in the middle of the
night. “
Thus we find that names can be created on impulse
too.
Source 2.
“I Will Write My Name In Fire Red”:
Subjectivity and Allegory in Wide Sargasso Sea
and Annie John” by Barbara Langston
This is an article that has served to throw light
on the work of another writer Rhys, from the Caribbean
, on the topic of names and naming.
..” Knowing that Rhys helped write her own
identity by changing her name exposes how important
to the self a name is” is a thoughtful reflection
by the author .
Further in a discussion of the book by Rhys,
Barbara Langston, brings out in high color, how
the author Rhys describes the imposition of male
chauvinism on women even in the process of giving
them names. The husband who is nameless, gives
Antoinette different names – Bertha, to
make her more English, take her away from the
Caribbean roots and in so doing to make her less
threatening, and then, he calls her Marionette,
the name of her doll, to keep her from speaking
of her own free will.
This article later discusses the work of Jamaica
Kincaid and helps us understand the identity crisis
faced by the people of West Indies after the colonization
by Great Britain though this particular article
does not reveal how the names of the people and
the places in the Caribbean also contributed to
an identity crisis. However, these could be deduced
from the facts exposed in this article. “In
Annie John...the alienation from the mother becomes
metaphor for the young woman’s alienation
from an island culture that has been completely
dominated by the imperialist power of England.”
3. http://www.behindthename.com/articles/3.html
“Names and Personal Identity By H. Edward
Deluzain “
In this article by Edward Deluzing, there is a
lot of material on Names and naming that have
proved very vital to our study. Edward Deluzain
talks about the significance of names and how
they differ from culture to culture. He describes
the rituals involved in naming a child in detail
in the baptismal ceremony .
The question raised by the bard “What’s
in a name?” is well answered by the line,
“This bestowal of name and identity is a
kind of symbolic contract between the society
and the individual. “ He further discusses
how sometimes , the society fails to live up to
the expectations of the individual and when it
happens, the individual seeks to respond by abandoning
the name given by such a society. This makes us
understand that Jamaica Kincaid might have changed
her name to shift roots from her place to USA
but a portion of her heart that held the love
for her country must have led her to name herself
Jamaica .
Further, he essays an interesting observation
on the patterns of naming twins and on the importance
of pronouncing a name properly.
Thus, this article serves to add clarity and detail
to the study of names and naming.
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