Mavrik Hard: July 2021

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