What’s in a name?

What do you call yourself?

If you had to name yourself today what would it be?

What would it say about you?

What do you want to project to the world and what do you want to keep hidden?

What defines you?

What is ‘you’?

The same question can be asked when your naming anything – a child, a pet, a business or even a blog.

In T.S. Elliots poems of the Possums book of practical cats there is a poem called the naming of cats. In this poem he looks at the 3 different names all cats have…

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey–
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter–
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

Another wonderful example of naming comes from Doctor Who. In one episode the Doctor talks to a baby. The parents have named the child Alfie Owens, but the Doctor tells the parents that the child prefers to go by the name Stormaggedon, Dark Lord of all. He calls his mother ‘Mum’, hid father ‘not Mum’ and the doctor ‘also not Mum’.

So what might your name be?

I think I’ll go with Sue Imagineerer ….. as for my last name – well, that would be telling.