What is a Name?

Names are the things that we care most about, it shows our love and attachment to something; it alternatively also gives names to things we disapprove of or even hate. Names give power and explanation to a feeling. The book Gendered Lives uses the example of sexual harassment, that there was never a term for sexual harassment until the 1960’s before it was always refunded to has getting out of line. One the term sexual harassment was coined for that term it finally gave consequence for the act.  An alternatively explanation would be that we give names to things we care about. Take for example breakfast at Tiffany’s, Audrey Hepburn has a cat during the whole movie, she just always referred to the cat as cat, because she felt the cat was nether hers .Ironically neither was she anyone else’s. Meaning there was no direct ownership nor was there a commitment.

                One good example of names having power is in a relationship. When two people love each other very much, they give each other pet names. These names help to define the relationship. Such pet names as Baby, Love, Chicken and so one are a way to add meaning or awareness. These names also let you know where one stands in the relationship, you could be called Baby or babe for years, but once there is a fight over one needing space, suddenly you  (or the other)are refuted to as you birth given name. By doing this, the partner is now taking away the statues of the relationship or perhaps the relationship all together.

                Names can also change meaning over time of an object, idea or a person over time. Take Shaun Colms for example and he’s evolved as a person over the years so has his name. In the early 1990s he Puff Daddy rapping with Biggy Smalls, that’s who he was Puff Daddy. Subsequently it changed to P Diddy for whatever reason, and now to Shan Colms (He’s much funnier as Sean). The moral of the story is that even though his name has changed a number of times he is still physically the same person, but he has developed into who he is as a person today.

                The moral of the story is that a thing, a person a feeling has no power or awareness until we have given it that name. Regardless of if it is in a positive light such as pet names, or a negative connotation such as sexual harassment or bullying; even in the realm of identity it changes the meaning and the power of the thing.