Thursday, May 21, 2009

What's in a name?

So. How is everyone? I'm going to guess that since it's been months since I posted, no one is reading this. But hey, I'm going to stick with it, and maybe someday, the world will know my name! Just kidding. I don't really want the world to know my name. Which brings me to my point for this post: names. What does yours mean? Do you know? Do you care? Does it matter at all?

To be quite honest, I'm not sure. I love the concept of names and the meanings behind them. I want to give my children very meaningful names. I think, though, that a name will not have much affect on a child unless he knows what it means. Take me, for example, my name means "nobility." Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that I am particularly noble. However, look at Jabez, his name actually was a word meaning "he who brings pain." And everyone knew it! You wanna talk about an inferiority complex?? Goodness gracious. The man is recorded as having prayed that God's hand would be upon him so that he wouldn't cause pain!

I think that meaningful names are a lost art. These days we have celebrities naming their children things like "Apple" and "Lyric" and "Ireland". And you know what? I think that these children just might have some issues with their names. Because these children are named with simple words that they know the meanings of. Unfortunately, these names don't have much substance behind the meaning, but still.

William Shakespeare once wrote, "A rose by any other name still smells as sweet." It appears he would have thought that a name means nothing. And by today's standards... I tend to agree with him, though I really would like to change that for my children... I want to give them names that have deep meaning, and I want them to know it from the moment the names are given to them. Perhaps this is an out-dated and romantic idea... But who cares? :-)

1 comment:

Amanda Jo said...

Excellent post but lets not forget the names of Zappa's kids: Moon Unit, Dwezzil and Diva Muffin.