What’s In a Name?
Gender Euphoria and the Magic of Naming Yourself
What’s in a name, really? Does it make any difference about who we are? Should it?
I used to have this pet theory about names. I had the impression that people with certain names had similar personality traits. When I would meet someone with a specific name, I would wait curiously to see if they lived up to it.
The problem with that theory, of course, is that it was hogwash. You live long enough and you find more exceptions to the rule than the rule itself.
Still, names seem to have a certain power. If they didn’t, celebrities wouldn’t change their names — Norma Jean Baker would hold the same cachet as Maryilyn Monroe. Fiction authors (like myself) wouldn’t agonize over names of characters. One would work just as well as any other. Would a kid stay up half the night reading under the covers with a flashlight (I can neither confirm nor deny I have done this) if the main characters were the Jones Boys, not the Hardy Boys, or Nancy Smith, not Nancy Drew? What about just some guy named Steve instead of Gandalf the Grey? Of course not.
