A Rose by any other
name…
“What signifies the knowing of names, if you
know not the natures of things?”
Benjamin Franklin
“It
sorta starts off real slow and then fizzles out altogether.”
Neil Young
There is a line of thinking that connects with a
belief about the ‘first’ language that was spoken after the Fall when Adam and
Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden.
The Adamic language “is variously interpreted as either the
language used by God to
address Adam (the divine language), or the language invented by
Adam with which he named all things (including Eve), as in the second Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 2:19).” [1].
Some people believe that this language was Hebrew.
“Umberto Eco (1993)
notes that Genesis is ambiguous on whether the language of Adam was preserved
by Adam's descendants until the confusion of
tongues, or if it began to evolve naturally even before Babel.”
[1].
That is, this culminates in the story of the Tower of Babel and
the consequent emergence of many languages.
Dante Alighieri initially espoused the idea that “the Adamic
language is of divine origin and hence unchangeable” [1], but later in the
Divine Comedy, held the “Adamic language as the product of Adam. This had the
consequence that it could no longer be regarded as immutable, and hence Hebrew
could not be regarded as identical with the language of Paradise..”
Later, Robert Boyle was skeptical that Hebrew was the language
best capable of describing the nature of things, stating:
“I could never find, that the Hebrew names of
animals, mentioned in the beginning of Genesis, argued a (much) clearer insight
into their natures, than did the names of the same or some other animals in Greek,
or other languages.”
Clearly the scientific world view put paid to all such beliefs.
However, in the world of fantasy different rules can be made up.
In the story of Rumplestiltskin by the Grimm Brothers [2],
the imp,” knew that no one on earth knew his true
name.” He had taken the Queen’s baby as ‘payment for services rendered’ (helping
her spin gold). She protested; the imp said: “you have 3 days to find my true
name; if you guess it you get your baby back”. Naturally, he lost the bet and
had to return the Queen’s baby to her when she revealed his true name.
Ursula LeGuin in her EarthSea series uses a similar idea. There is
an original language and the names in it have deep significance that does
indeed describe their inner nature. For example:
“Each act of magic was linked to a specific word: therefore, it
was generally true that the more knowledge one had of the Ancient Language, the
more magic they could perform. It was also possible for experienced magicians to
utilize Non-verbal manipulation,
although this was extremely dangerous, if the mind wandered the spell would
change. For example, if a magician cast non-verbally, for example 'Burn
that door', and focused on something other than the door, they may accidentally
burn that instead.”[3]
“It was impossible to lie in
the Ancient Language because words spoken in the language were unquestionably
true - although, it was said that the elves were masters at saying one thing
and meaning another.” [3].
Christopher Paolini has cited Ursula Le.
Guinn's Earthsea books as "inspiration," so he probably got
the idea of true names for people and things from there. (The language of Ged -
the protagonist in Earthsea - and his race, has this same property
like the Ancient Language).
Ursula LeGuin posits the idea that your true
name can only be discovered by a wizard and that the wizard will communicate
this name to you at the time of your initiation ceremony. Knowledge of the true
name can give others power over you, so you should not tell that true name to
anyone whom you do not love or trust.
A similar idea of magic is proposed in Ann
Leckie’s book, “The Raven Tower.” A god can make a statement but to enforce that
reality a considerable expenditure of energy is required, especially if the
assertion is at odds with other aspects of reality.
So if you want to come back to reality with a
thud, just see what the Nobel-Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman had to
say about naming [4]:
“One kid says to me,
"See that bird? What kind of bird is that?" I said, "I haven't
the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is." He says, "It's a
brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn't teach you anything!" But it was
the opposite. He had already taught me: "See that bird?" he says.
"It's a Spencer's warbler." (I knew he didn't know the real name.)
"Well, in Italian, it's a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it's a Bom da
Peida. In Chinese, it's a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it's a Katano Tekeda.
You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when
you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You'll
only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So
let's look at the bird and see what it's doing-that's what counts." (I
learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and
knowing something.).”
This is a modern view, and it chimes pretty
well with what Shakespeare said:
“A rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.”
The Swiss linguist de Saussure specifically
marked the divergence between the signifier and the signified [5], and the fact
that the relation between the two is purely arbitrary social convention – which
will be different in different places (back to Babel!).
Umberto Eco said: “if signs can be used to
tell the truth, they can also be used to lie.” [5].
De Saussure divided the sign into “ the signifier ('sound-image') and
the signified ('concept'),” The relationship between the
signifier and signified is an arbitrary relationship: ‘there is no logical
connection’ between them.” [5].
“de Saussure argued that the meaning of a sign ‘depends on
its relation to other words within the system;’ for example, to understand an
individual word such as ‘tree,’ one must also understand the word ‘bush’ and
how the two relate to each other.”[6].
In our mundane reality, it isn’t wizards that decide your
name; it is your parents (or other care-giver), when you are born. The name is
usually selected on the basis of some favored relative who had the same name.
Or someone the parents admire. Some parents decide the name based on its
meaning. But most people are blissfully unaware of the meaning of the name. How
many would know the exact meaning of the name Mary?
“When my
friends call me, ‘Mary,’ they don't mean to describe me as ‘bitter’ although at
times this may be most fitting. In fact, many probably do not even know that
‘Mary’ means "bitter." [7]
To be fair,
however, the name ‘Mary’ has other meanings too: "beloved", "rebelliousness", "wished-for
child", "marine", “drop of the sea” [7].
Do names have consequences?
For starters, consider the case of Maria Schicklgruber and
her son [8]. Her husband left her and she took care of her son alone, but she
decided to keep her husband’s name. I cannot trace the author, but someone
pointed out that the course of history would surely have been different had
Maria retained her maiden name. After all, even the Germans would have balked
at saying: “Heil Schicklgruber!”!
This question was also examined by Christian Jarrett recently
[9]. He goes beyond the standard arguments that people are less likely to hire
those who have names associated with different religions or ethnicities, and
points out that some names just become unfashionable and can affect the
self-esteem of those stuck with them, apart from arousing negative perceptions
in the general public. However, the upside of an unusual name is that it may
stick in other people’s memories, and is also associated with unusual, creative
professions.
Of course, this brings to mind the large number of surnames
that are associated with various professions (some no longer common): archer, baker,
baxter, barber, bailey, brewer, carpenter, chapman, cook, cooper, dempster, farmer,
fisher, fletcher, fowler, gardner, harper, hooper, kitchener, lister, mercer, miller,
parker, roper, sawyer, shepherd, smith, spooner, tanner, turner, usher, warner,
weaver, wheeler, wright , … [10]. I
believe the list of occupational surnames – in English – is long [10], and it
is likely that the same holds in other languages as well. (I tried to list at
least one name per starting letter, but some got missed out, while others are
over-represented). I should add that I had no idea about the meanings of some
of them (e.g. baxter), until I looked at the list [10] – which also contains
surnames linked to particular places.
Of course, you may well have someone named Baker as Foreign
Minister! In India, with caste names seemingly written in stone, the situation
is much grimmer, and many people are condemned by their names to do what their
ancestors did.
Jarrett briefly mentions nominative
determinism [9]: “the idea that the meaning of our names influences our
life decisions (apparently explaining the abundance of neurologists called Dr.
Brain and similar amusing occurrences),” or,” a hypothesis which suggests a
causal relationship based on the idea that people tend to be attracted to areas
of work that fit their name.”
There are other names for this amusing
phenomenon - aptronym,aptonym or euonym - i.e. a personal name aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner [11].
Franklin Adams came up with the name aptropnym
as an anagram of patronym, to emphasize the word ‘apt’ [11].
Frank Nussel
in his book, “The Study of Names” describes an aptonym as: “People whose names and occupations
or situations (e.g., workplace) have a close correspondence.” [11].
Carl Jung
wrote that there was “sometimes quite grotesque coincidence between a man's
name and his peculiarities.”[11]. The wiki page [11] has quite a long list…
There are
also some celebrity aptronyms [12]:
“Amy Winehouse in a Cellar, Terry Hatcher Hatching,
Gerard Butler as a Butler.”
Note that Bianca [12] blogged about Amy Winehouse in January
2010, probably in a light-hearted way – and Amy Winehouse tragically died in
July 2011 of alcohol poisoning. Not the best example one could choose for an aptronym,
in hindsight. But Bianca has many more:
“Dakota Fanning fanning herself, Terry Hatcher in a bird’s
nest, David Letterman as a delivery guy, Sean Combs as a barber, Holly Hunter
as a vampire slayer, Jack Black as a black smith…”
Plenty of aptronyms are quite nice. Imagine a girl named
Rose or Flora who works as a florist [13]. So if there are so many names of
girls as flowers, what are the odds that she ends up in some profession that
smacks of horticulture?
But one of my favorites is a book called “The Imperial
Animal”, written by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox. I think that Robin Fox was just
tagging along, but that is probably sheer prejudice.
I have another that I came across recently, a Science Writer
named Prakash Chandra. Now I approve of this chap when he writes about
astronomy or optics, but I find myself uncomfortable when he goes awry into
fields which he – quite frankly - should not meddle in…But who am I to judge? I
liked the name Varsha Meghani but all I could find out was an article on DNA…if
she only she wrote on the monsoon floods in Mumbai, I could have added another aptronym
to my list…
Then there is the case of the anti-aptronym. The most apt
example I know of is a chap named Sushil Lamba. His name might deceive you into
thinking that he is as quiet as a lamb – whereas, in reality, he is precisely
the opposite.
Among the Red Indians, a young man would choose his own name
at his coming of age ceremony. This would probably avoid such obvious
difficulties like those that Sushil Lamba’s parents must have faced in
explaining away an inexplicable naming. But there is no guarantee that you
would choose the right name, your ‘true name’ – the one that only Ursula
LeGuin’s wizards could divine. Of course, if you chose a Red Indian name like
Eagle Eye because you had hyperopia, that ought to pass muster.
How about names associated with places? For example, ‘Townsend’
- a topographic name for ‘someone who
lived at the extremity of a village’, from Middle English toun 'village',
'settlement' + ende 'end' [14]. A more famous example is the Nehrus, whose name
was obtained because their house was next to a canal. In some cases, a person
would choose the place he wanted to be associated with, for cultural reasons,
such as Sahir Ludhianvi, Siraj Aurangabadi, Qamar Jalalabadi, Kaif Bhopali…[15].
Aptronyms may be transitory – if Flora takes a as a florist
over the summer – or permanent, if you have a name called Michelle Starr and
are an astronomer (actually she is Science Writer, but she often takes up
astronomical topics), or a poet named Bhopali who actually lives in Bhopal –
inasmuch as anything human can be permanent.
The name of God was revealed to the Jews in ancient times as
Yahweh [16] in the Old Testament, but: “the divine name was increasingly
regarded as too sacred to be uttered.”
But the power of names can be attested to by Arthur C.Clarke’s
short story:”The Nine Billion Names of God.” No, I really can’t reveal it; if
you haven’t read it yet, you should.
References:
1. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamic_language
2. 2. https://storiestogrowby.org/story/early-reader-rumpelstiltskin-fairy-tale-english-stories-kids/
3. 3. https://inheritance.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Language
4. 4. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/classic-richard-feynman-difference-between-knowing-name-something-and-knowing-something
5. 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signified_and_signifier
6. 6. https://www.xenos.org/essays/old-testament-understand-names-god
7. 7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(name)#:~:text=Meaning,%2C%20Marie%2C%20(and%20variant)
8. 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Schicklgruber
9. 9. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210525-how-your-name-affects-your-personality
10 10. https://localhistories.org/the-origin-of-english-surnames/
11 11. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym
1212. https://www.trendhunter.com/amp/trends/celebrity-aptronyms
13 13. https://nameberry.com/list/97/Flower-Names-for-Girls
14 14. https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=townsend
1515. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Urdu-language_poets#Contemporary_poets
1616. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh
