Nomenclature

Naming is a difficult game, one that brings out my worst instincts for indecision. It took me several weeks, for instance, to name a teddy bear presented on my 10th birthday. With a staggering lack of originality I finally called it "Paddington," which was fundamentally aspirational since I had all along wished the bear came with a raincoat and galoshes.

I envy lyrical names that roll off the tongue. My name has a choppy, staccato feel that I have never thought beautiful. Still, it's incredible to realize the historicity of a name and the mutations it undergoes over time and in different cultures: Joseph, Yosef, Giuseppe. Claudia, Claudine, Claudette. The Russian name Natasha derives from Natalya, and thenceforth back to Natalie: day of birth, the birthday of Christ. And yet it migrated with travelers from Russia to India, so that today I know Natashas in Bombay and Moscow alike.

Are we conscious of names as part of our birthright? Do we really adopt those characteristics with which they are associated? By that token I would have borne multiple children and claimed the earth and sky as my dominion. Aspirational indeed!

All this because today I struggled to find the right moniker for my blog. How do we encapsulate our personalities, beliefs, likes and ideals in a few choice words? A name is a calling card, a piece of genetic makeup, an acronym for the greater wealth of our physical and mental being. It carries the details of our choices and histories: surely Kate was born Katherine, but why then was "Katie" not allowed to be? Was there a Katherine who came before, and if so, what ghost of her breathes on?

Names of those we love or hate linger in our minds as substitutes for the flesh. We scrawl them blindly and blissfully - sometimes with vengeance - on surfaces around us, each letter encoded with meaning. They can be chosen with different motives and assume several layers and meanings. What they rarely are, as I found when creating this blog, is simple.