Blog: What Is In a Name?

What is in a name? People can go by so many different things. But is a true name less of an actual name and more a word for the person's soul?

I got married earlier this year and took my husband's last name for my personal life. It has felt quite odd to be called by the new last name. Anytime I introduce myself, I have to pause a second to remember to use the new last name. To complicate this I am using my maiden name for my writing. Now I am both names; yet I am neither. It's odd how a name can embody who you are. It's even stranger to have two names that are so completely different. The names feel like different lives.

Although, in the life department I've probably lived six different lives in my short life so far. This would just be another new chapter. And speaking of chapters, my birthday is this week. It's one of those big-chapter birthdays – one of the more depressing ones for someone in my age range – where numbers should start going backwards instead of forwards. It's also my first birthday with my new last name. And the first birthday without any of my family nearby; except my husband of course.

But back to names.  A single name can mean so many different things. My first name means 1) a bird by the same name 2) a bright fame 3) a bright flame (as in the red chest of the robin bird). My maiden surname means dweller by a hill/berg (German for mountain)/fort. That's ironic since I grew up in the hills of northwest Arkansas and lived nearby a place called Mountainburg. I really loved those hills and miss them now that I live in a concrete city. My new last name could mean anything from crow's pass to crossing of blood.

But do all of these different names and different meanings really mean anything at all? A name can mean anything. Each person creates their own meaning. And no two people with the same name will ever be the same.

While we are discussing names, here is an excerpt from my Painted Realm setting with my character, Wendell the Wanderer. Poor Wendell believe that it is his name that has defined his unlucky life.

Wendell was the amicable type.  All he ever wanted was a place to call home.  Life did not agree, however, and always found reasons to send him to anew city every couple of weeks.  It was not his fault that he ended up in the middle of the street outside the bank, holding the stolen money in Silver Springs.  It was not his fault that the citizens fiercely refused to believe that he had absolutely nothing to do with the robbery.   Wendell decided he did not wish to live out the rest of his days in Silver Springs, so he quickly scattered the money to the wind and ran for his life.  It became another city on the long list of cities he had visited, which he would not likely visit again.

If his deceased parents had known his name meant "wanderer" when they named him, Wendell was sure they would not have burdened him with such a curse.  Instead they would have named him something normal like Jack or David or Raphael.  He had always liked the name Raphael.  It sounded so handsome and eloquent.  He could almost hear the women cooing softly, calling out, "Raphael, oh Raphael, come over here, Raphael!"  It was like music to his poor lonely heart.  In one city he even told everyone that his name was Raphael, but they all laughed at him. No one believed he could possibly be named Raphael.  When you are called something for twenty-five years, you become that something he decided.  No matter how much he wanted to be a Raphael, he would never be a Raphael because his parents made him a Wendell.  They called him that from birth and everyday of his life, until the day their tragic deaths left him homeless and made him a wanderer.