What's In A Name?

Most people in the English speaking world will recognize this question, even if they don't recognize it as anything more than a thing from a book they didn't read in secondary school, or a line from a movie with Leo DeCaprio in it. It's from a play by Shakespeare, one of his most popular works, the tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The question is posited by Juliet in response to the fact that she's in love with a man who she's forbidden to marry because he's from a different family. She mourns the seeming cruelty of restricting her happiness based on Romeo's family name, and asks this timeless question. She famously follows this question with the observation that "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

She also famously kills herself at the end of the play. Those familiar with the work may also recognize that neither Romeo or Juliet were particularly bright.

The question stands, then. What is in a name? What meaning does a name hold for us? If I were to blindfold you and hold a rose in front of you and tell you it was a fresh cow pie, would it smell as sweet? Do roses even smell sweet? Honestly, I've never thought so. They're pretty, no doubt, but I haven't ever smelled one I liked. Personally, a better test would be if you held a bunch of lilacs in front of me and told me it was a rose.

And I think I'm probably not alone in saying that names, especially where they relate to people, are not meaningless. Sure, the thing with the lilacs and the rose probably would work fine, to a point. You can call them flowers roses all you want, but I'm still going to smell lilacs. But that name still means something. They were called lilacs the entire time I was growing up, and that is the name I associate good smells with, not roses. So you can call them roses, and every time you do, my brain will change that to lilacs to better fit my picture of the universe.

So would Romeo have been the same if his name had been Harold? Maybe. But then, that might depend on how long you'd known him. Juliet had just met the dude (and fallen in love immediately, and wanted to leave her entire family to be with him. All of you who make fun of Disney for doing that exact thing should really rethink the target of your jabs). So maybe his name didn't make any difference to her. But you can bet that it would have made a difference to his parents.

I had an experience back when I was a sophomore in high school related to this. I had used the name (and a few personality traits) of a dear friend for a character in a short story. At the time I thought this a particularly clever way to save me the trouble of characterization. A clever solution for a short piece of prose. The story didn't end particularly well for that character, and I found myself in tears as I wrote and re-read the ending. The person I was killing on these pages I still consider a dear friend of mine, and I imagine that even though it has been years since I've spoken to her, I'd probably cry if she died. So of course, even though this character was not a real person, the name I'd given her had a very personal connection for me.

I was proud of what I'd written, and archived it as a great piece of work.

Fast forward about seven years. I found that piece among my archive, remembered thinking it was quite good, and re-read it. Removed from the moment of writing it by almost a decade and having learned much in the arts of word-fu since then, I recognized immediately that the story was flat and emotionless. The character that perished at the end, the character who bore the name of my dear friend, was two-dimensional and boring. There was almost no characterization for her, and her death felt empty. She was a hollow husk of a person I didn't care for. I had two distinct reactions to this realization. The first was to go back through the story and change her name. I felt like it would be offensive to my friend (on the very off chance this story ever sees the light of day again) to be portrayed in such a manner. My second reaction was to sit in glum confusion as to how I had ever thought that another person would become emotional at those words.

I had cried when I wrote that? Was I stupid in high school? Like, completely moronic?

I'm not saying I wasn't stupid in high school, but I like to think I've never been that bad at spotting a poorly written character (I'm looking at you, David Eddings). So why was I so attached to that character when I wrote this tripe? The only answer I can think of is that simply, the characterization was in the name.

I had placed a person I cared for in a horrible situation, and because it was her name, she was the person on that page to me when I wrote it. Time solved that perspective problem for me, thank heavens. But the experience has taught me something. Simply, there's a lot in a name. All of the personality traits and quirks of each person I know is filed under their name in my memory. You can say a random name and if I know a person with that name, I will immediately associate a range of emotions with that name. I am more likely to make friends with people if their name is the same as someone I like, while I unintentionally cast judgement against people I've never met before if they happen to share a name with someone I didn't.

I do this all the time, and it's probably not fair. But we humans are essentially social animals, and we're wired to work like this. Knowing we do it is a big step toward not doing it, or at least looking past those initial judgements, but to suggest that names mean nothing to us is, at best, silly.

Yet another reason why I hate Romeo and Juliet.