I don't know how much more mileage I can get out of this topic, but I have to be getting close to the end of the line. Whatever the case may be, I'm going to drain every drop of thought I can from it.
This time I'm considering the meanings behind the names of people. If you have been with me for a while or were simply overcome with the urge to read my archives, you'll hopefully remember a post from a few weeks back on naming a baby. Likely one of the more distinctive facets of that post was my preference for demonic names like Mephistopheles and Baal. Clearly, there are some massively negative connotations associated with those names. Generally, I simply liked the sound of these names, but some of the other names like those drawn from mythology and I found pleasure in their allusions to these great figures. Now I'm asking myself just how important the connections drawn by these names are. Is it right to arbitrarily give someone a name with such a terrible history or does meaning not come into it at all?
First of all, I refuse to believe that names determine a person's personality anymore than their Zodiac sign or the lines on their palm. A person can always go by a nickname or last name or something. Still, what would it say if we were to completely divorce a name from any meaning whatsoever, appropriate the elements we liked and ignored the rest? Do we agree with and accept Bruce Willis' line in Pulp Fiction, "Our names don't mean shit," or do we seek and find meaning in all aspects of our lives? Something that ought definitely to be considered within the larger framework of our life philosophies.
At least one can always hope that people, in general, are too ignorant to recognize the source of these names and give the person any flak for them.
The Return
9 years ago
Posts
1 comment:
I can pass on a tale of how my buddy came up with the middle name for his first child.
Paul and I were driving around the countryside near Grove City, Minnesota, in 1978, in Paul's '59 Ford pickup truck. We were in the middle of what we now romantically recall as a 'gin night,' when I somehow conjured a serious request to Paul from my alcohol-induced haze.
Will you name your first child after me? After a short pause, my drunk friend said, "Hell yes, 'Z'." "Z" was short for "ZZ," which was what folks called me then, and now. (Kind of makes you wonder why a two-letter name would need to be shortened, eh?).
Anyway, we tried long and hard to come up with a list of masculine names that started with Z. We were drunken idiots at that moment, and as I recall, we could only come up with two choices, neither of which was 70's mainstream: Zachary and Zacharia.
As a man of his word, my pal Paul, overruled the wishes of his surly wife, and Paul's first son was named Peter Zacharia, or, "Peter Z," for short.
Post a Comment