What’s in a Name? Maybe Too Much!

[image error]The other day I saw a billboard for an area university which promised that its program would turn the school’s graduates into “conquerors.” This was not the word I expected. It seems to me that a different description might have been more appropriate. Competent comes to mind. Or perhaps capable. Or maybe even hirable, as long as it is combined with the additional qualifying phrase: “in certain fields and economic environments.”

The trouble with a school advertising that its graduates will be conquerors is that it is promising too much. I suppose it might be appropriate if the school specialized in military strategy and its students were preparing to be despots or generals. But even then I think I would be suspicious.

This billboard is an example of the kind of hyperbole we often hear in our culture. It isn’t limited to marketing. Sometimes it creeps into the names we give our children. In the old days, bread and butter names like Jack or Suzie were perfectly acceptable. Now the names we hear sound more like titles. Instead of Phil, it’s Royal. Instead of Judy, it’s Precious. These aren’t names. They are adjectives. Some sound suspiciously like the names we used to give to our pets. “Come here, King! Good dog!” 

I do understand what is really going on here. Such names are meant to send a message to the child. They are intended to build a child’s self-image. Parents want their children to feel that they stand out from the crowd. Why merely be Mark when you can be Magnificent instead? Still, sometimes I think we do children a disservice by promising so much. Parents who want to be more honest in their naming might do better to call their child Average or possibly Irritating.

Some will say that the Bible sanctions this practice of aspirational naming. After all, didn’t Jesus change Simon’s name to Peter, which means “a rock?” This is true. But I will point out that the term doesn’t seem to refer to a boulder but to something smaller. It is more like a stone. Do you know how annoying it is when you get a stone in your shoe? Jesus called James and John the Sons of Thunder. These were the two brothers who offered to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village that refused to welcome Jesus (Luke 9:52-56). One wonders if there wasn’t just a touch of affectionate ridicule in the nickname Jesus bestowed upon them. 

Then, of course, there was the prophet’s daughter-in-law who named her son Ichabod after the ark of the covenant was captured by the Philistines (1 Sam. 4:21). According to Old Testament scholar Robert Alter, the name meant something like “inglorious,” or “Where is the glory?” But this was more of an observation about current events than it was a value judgment about the child’s character. If our culture decides to follow her example, in a few years I will probably start meeting students in my classes named “Government Shut-Down Due to Lack of Agreement on the Budget.” Though I suppose that it is unlikely, even if there is a biblical precedent. 

 I am afraid that the church is too much given to meaningless hyperbole in its rhetoric. It often does this in an attempt to market itself to outsiders. The trouble with marketing hyperbole is that it is empty. By saying too much, it says nothing at all. When the church slips into marketing speech, it exaggerates its experiences and misrepresents the nature of the Christian life. It relies on sentimental tropes, pat answers, and superficial analysis of life’s problems. Such talk blunts the force of the Bible’s true hyperbole when we come upon it. 

Interestingly, the Bible does not call us conquerors. It actually says that we are more than conquerors, “through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). In the same context, it also mentions trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger and the sword (vs. 35). This is no marketing hype but real life. A life that has been intersected by the grace of God. And that’s no exaggeration.