Patsy Clark: Emma, this is Lizbeth. Emma Greenway Horton: [shakes hands with her] Oh, hi, Elizabeth. Lizbeth: Hi. It’s Lizbeth. Emma Greenway Horton: Isn’t that what I said? Lizbeth: No, you said “Elizabeth” with an e. It’s Lizbeth. Emma Greenway Horton: Oh, two names? Liz Beth? Lizbeth: Oh no, one. Lizbeth. Emma Greenway Horton: Lizbeth? Lizbeth: Never mind. The others laugh. Patsy Clark: And this is Jane. Emma Greenway Horton: Thank heavens!
—Dialogue from the movie Terms of Endearment (1983)
I myself have an unbearably vulgar name, am well aware of the fact, and have no plans to change it. But I remain extremely interested in people’s names.
To give someone a name is a simple and small-scale act of creation. When the patriarch of days gone by would sit in winter with his feet propped up on a foot-warming brazier, smoking a water-pipe, and pick out a name for a newly arrived grandson, his word was all. If the boy was called Guang-mei (Brighten the Threshold), he would end up doing his best to redound honor on the gates of the family house. If he was called Zhuyin (Ancestral Privilege) or Chengzu (Indebted to the Ancestor), he would be compelled always to remember his forebears. If he was called Hesheng (Lotus Born), his life would take on something of the coloring of a pond in June. Characters in novels aside, there aren’t many people whose names adequately describe what they are like in reality (and often the opposite is the case and the name represents something they need or lack– nine of ten poor people have names like Jingui [Gold Precious], Ah Fu [Richie], Dayou [Have a Lot]). But no matter how or in what manner, names inevitably become entangled with appearance and character in the process of creating a complete impression of a person. And this is why naming is a kind of creation.
I would like to give someone a name, even though I’ve yet to have the opportunity to do so….
—Chinese novelist Eileen Chang (1920-1995) in her essay “What is essential is that names be right” from Written on Water (2005), translated from her book Liuyan (1968) by Andrew F. Jones. The essays were written in wartime Shanghai. The title refers to a famous quotation of Confucius.
What is originality? It is seeing something that still has no name, that cannot yet be named, even if it is right in front of everyone’s eyes. The way people usually are is that something becomes visible to them only once it is named. — People with originality are mostly also the name-givers.
Was ist Originalität? Etwas sehen, das noch keinen Namen trägt, noch nicht genannt werden kann, ob es gleich vor aller Augen liegt. Wie die Menschen gewöhnlich sind, macht ihnen erst der Name ein Ding überhaupt sichtbar.— Die Originalen sind zumeist auch die Namengeber gewesen.
Dear name! the first
to make my heart flutter!
The delights of love
you always bring back to me!
In thought, my desire
flies to you at every hour
and even my last breath
dear name, will be yours.
Caro nome che il mio cor
festi primo palpitar,
le delizie dell’amor
mi dei sempre rammentar!
Col pensiero il mio desir
a te ognora volerà,
e pur l’ ultimo sospir,
caro nome, tuo sarà.
Photo of Hurricane Ike (September 2008), from NASA's Marshall Space Center, on flickr
Have you ever wondered how they come up with the names for hurricanes? I have not been able to find an explanation of exactly how the list of names is picked, but the names do have to be short and easily spelled and pronounced. They are in alphabetical order and if there are more than 26 storms of hurricane intensity, the Greek alphabet comes to the rescue. Normally, hurricane names repeat every seven years. When a hurricane is particularly destructive, its name is retired: you won’t see any more Ikes or Katrinas.
When the storms were first given names, in 1953, hurricanes all had female names, but since 1979 there have been equal numbers of male and female names.
Don’t you find that it’s an odd question, to ask people who they are? … They go for the easy answer: their last names, their first names, their positions, but who are they really? They keep it to themselves deep down inside, they carefully hide it.
Vous ne trouvez pas que c’est une question saugrenue que de demander aux gens qui ils sont ?… Ils vont au plus facile : nom, prénoms, qualités, mais ce qu’ils sont réellement ? Au fond d’eux-mêmes, ils le taisent, ils le cachent soigneusement.
The Jones surname comes from Wales and is still most prevalent there
The World Family Names website allows you to search for the prevalence of a family name in 26 countries. In some places, you can search as deep down as counties or regions.
When Tomas looked back at the hotel, he noticed that something had in fact changed. What had once been the Grand now bore the name Baikal. He looked at the street sign on the corner of the building: Moscow Square. Then they took a walk (Karenin tagged along on his own, without a leash) through all the streets they had known, and examined all the names: Stalingrad Street, Odessa Street. There was a Tchaikovsky Sanatorium, a Rimsky-Korsakov Sanatorium; there was a Hotel Suvorov, a Gorky cinema, and a Café Pushkin. All the names were taken from Russian geography, from Russian history.
Tereza suddenly recalled the first days of the invasion. People in every city and town had pulled down the street signs; sign posts had disappeared. Overnight, the country had become nameless. For several days, Russian troops wandered the countryside, not knowing where they were. The officers searched for newspaper offices, for television and radio stations to occupy, but could not find them. Whenever they asked, they would get either a shrug of the shoulders or false names and directions.
Hindsight now made that anonymity seem quite dangerous to the country. The streets and buildings could no longer return to their original names. As a result, a Czech spa had suddenly metamorphosed into a miniature Russia, and the past that Tereza had gone there to find had turned out to be confiscated.
