What’s in a name?

6/9/2023

6:09 pm

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” – William Shakespeare

It is ironic that this word prompt came up today.

I had recent discussions with others about names and their importance.

I come from a people who were diminished over time, our history, our knowledge, our language, and other facets of who we are as a people, wiped out in the name of progress and colonization.

Our names, our true tribal names, replaced by religious ideology.

The “Christian” name that I grew up with has never really been my own. It is something that someone else gave to me and at the same time the image this name invokes for some has never been positive. I have had to live with it my whole life.

My given, not chosen, name is Suzanne, Phonetic Spelling:[ s oo – z AE n ], pronounces [Soo Zan].

It is not Sue, Suzy, Susie, Susan, Susannah, or any other variation that people tend to call me, who do not know me. It has been one of my biggest pet peeves for most of my life. It is not a difficult name to say but for most of my life it has been used with such disdain towards me as a person.

This name is not even the crux of the situation, the most important part is that I nor anyone else in the world had a choice of the name we go by, first, last, or even the middle name. Why is it so important for us to be “labeled” something, numbers assigned to us, and a predetermination of who we are as individuals? I personally have never understood that.

Discussions before with others have come up with several reasons, control over information as a possibility, and the second as way to keep us segregated. To keep us all in our little groups in the world within those imaginary borders.

I was born to a single mother, so my last name, Allen, is actually my birth name. That is also a given name to my family line after we were forcibly moved from our original lands, who knows what we were really called by, there are no records of us from before except in stories lost long ago.

I have an Indigenous name, it is “Wawatha” pronounced with a long “a’s” like in the word “water”. All my children were given Indigenous names and they are all based on the clans we belong to. That is our true names. I also gave them “names” after important people in our family or names that I thought would be good solid names to invoke either strength, wisdom, or trustworthiness. I too fell into that “idea” that they had be named something because society is our reality.

The prompt asked “If you had to change your name, what would our new name be?

Since “civil” society has made it necessary for us to be named something then I guess I would go back to my true name. That is who I am and who I will always be.

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Have a great week!

Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!