names

[arethinn]

What are people's thoughts on names that describe what you would like to be, or wish you were, rather than something you are?

That sort of name always feels like false advertising to me. If someone wants to name themselves "Morgana", for example, they had better have the personality and power to wear the name well; otherwise it is just silly and feels like self-aggrandizement or fluffiness (cf. "Lady Pixie Moondrip", for you Pagans out there).

I have been thinking about how names are acquired both in life and in myth, and it seems to me that the names that actually mean anything are generally the ones that are bestowed upon us. The names on our birth certificates, of course, are given by our parents. In some traditions one's initiatory name is given by the group or by one single other person, and not chosen for oneself. Nicknames and sometimes changes of "real" name are given by the family or peer group based on some physical or personality characteristic, or a deed (such as Setanta becoming Cu Chulainn after killing Culann's hound). Even those who have apparently changed their names for themselves (such as tyrsalvia), I'm going to lay a small amount of money that the name seemed to be made obvious by circumstances, and not simply dreamt up because they liked it.

What all this is boiling down to is that I don't think I am ever going to be able to pick a name for myself, because that's "impure" - real names are given.

Part of the reason this is a problem in the first place is that I don't feel I can "be anyone" (skipping whether I am inherently capable of that in the first place) without having a name to hang it on, and I don't want to stick things to a name that gives others unfavourable first impressions of me (no matter how much I might like "night-forest star-song", it's a bad idea), or that I would later regret or outgrow. Without a name I am paralyzed.

Comments

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

"I've never kept a name I chose - people will call me what they want. Some can't change. Once they have a word for you in their heads, they can't adapt it."

Yeah.. I've gotten stuck with "Eshari" this way although it doesn't have a specific link to anything anymore.

"I do believe that the true name, the Essential name, is something that is simply Known. I also believe that to give that name out is to give away power. Therefore, I have a name I never speak or write down or call myself in front of people."

Yes, I know this name. I am not sure what I think about it being "giving away power" in an aboslute sense; IME it has to be said in the right way by the right person for that to have any "meat". But in any case it's certainly nothing casual. Very, very briefly I used it publically on some otherkin lists back in about 2000 but I stopped that and I doubt if anyone besides enotsola (who, as soul-mate, knew it anyway) remembers. Around the time I discovered it in the first place, which was... phew... a long time ago... 13? 15 years? ... I used it with a then-good friend, and we called ourselves "soul sisters" and such silliness (we were both early teens and this was also the time we were live-acting ElfQuest and such).

In any case, that's the only name I've had that I've never wanted to change, which given the fact that I've had a bajillion other names throughout my life, never managing to find one that didn't itch after a few months, tops, speaks to me of its reality. The fact that when enotsola says it it has physical effect on me is something too. But it's not appropriate for general use, as you've noted. Soo.. stuck.