Names are doorways. They are an introduction and a way to get to an honest place about a person.
The first names we are called by are never our own choice or decision. We are born, and someone decides what to call this newly arrived being. In some cultures and families, parents or responsible parties wait to see a glimpse of newborn’s personality before giving a name. Smiles, gas bubble responses, and even random movements are seen by family members as the infant’s agreement to a name.
The choosing of a name is quite tricky. Do we choose a stylistic popular option that fits the then-current times? Do we go for a unique or individual name that might be hard to pronounce – or worse, difficult to spell? Will the name invite ridicule when the infant progresses through the toddler stage to a time of necessary social interaction with other children? Celebrity names are famous, even notorious, for being provoking the thought of, “what was that parent thinking?”
Children so easily make fun of names that are different yet, ironically, these same differences become admirable or even beautiful as individuals age. If I had been born male, I would have been Craig Anthony. As a Black male, my life expectancy would have been shorter than as a Black female. There are no men named Craig on either side of my family, nor in my extended family, or even the families of those close to my parents. As a pre-adolescent child, I associated the name with whiteness because the only men I saw with the name “Craig” were white and into local sports.
Names function as a marker of gender and place in common society. As noted in recent decades, names can act as a hindrance in finding a job. Perhaps that is why my mother, a librarian-trained social worker, and my father chose not to give me “Black-sounding” name. James Brown, Soul Brother #1, was right to “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” in 1968, but being proud doesn’t help someone who can’t get a job because of their name.
Is it fair? No. Sadly, names shape our identities as individuals before we even know who we are, what we believe, who we choose to love, or how we wish to live. On a larger scale, name changes for some institutions have been of particular importance recently to match values and current cultural norms.
Perhaps that is why name changes for a variety of reasons are not only popular, but a means of demonstrating growth along our given path in life.
My own journey wandered religiously from a very multi-denominational Christian childhood and a nominal affiliation with Christianity as a teen to a transition as an Orthodox Jew to a resting space with the gods in Paganism and Heathenry.
Magen David – Star of David [Wikimedia Commons]
As a Jew, I felt drawn to the difficulty of being a Black woman choosing to embrace the Jewish divine, Ha-Shem (the name). In a religious tradition where the name of the divine cannot be stated openly, the choice of name to be called by the community is incredibly important. To mark the journey, I chose a combination that included a woman who smote the enemy with a tent pin whose fierceness is that of the mountain goat, and the special blue dye used with the tzitzi (tassels) that adorn various garments and the tallit (prayer shawl).
This need (and requirement) to take a name to mark my formal acceptance, conversion, and initiation into the faith tradition served me well throughout the conversion process where the name symbolized the person I would become and the permanent change I sought to make in my life. From baking challah every Friday in observance of shabbat to using it on official papers marking various life ceremonies or when I witnessed for others’, to responding when called forth in later years – my Jewish name encompassed who I was and who I wanted to be.
Like the wild mountain goat, nothing would stop my quest, nor keep me from picking my way carefully through rough terrain. My name marked my membership in my religious tribe. Only other converts, or those who went from the status of the “ger,” the stranger, the foreigner would understand the sweetness and joy achieved in Judaism specifically with the taking on of a name. My certificate of conversion noted my new parentage as a child of Abraham and Sarah.
During Passover and at certain other times, I was only called by my Jewish name, not my legal one. I considered moving to Israel to complete my journey. Had I done so during that time of my life, I would have changed my legal name to match my religious one.
This period, however, also heralded the first time that I realized the challenge of navigating a legal or given name and a religious name. For many like myself who are born into or raised in Christianity, a religious name change is a marker between the past chosen by others and the present chosen by the individual.
Pentagram [public domain]
As a Pagan, the choice of name has varied depending on where I was in my religious and spiritual journey.
There are names taken as temporary when a person is first trying out a tradition. There are formal initiatory names and traditions where each successive initiation results in adding to the original name. There are secret names known only to the initiate, those present at the initiation, and perhaps those in the specific circle, grove, coven, kindred, house or group who use that name in private. There are names given by and known only to the individual and the deities whom the person serves or with whom the individual is in devotion and worship.
Alexander Stirling Calder, sculpture of Clio the muse of history at the tomb of Henry Charles Lea at Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, 1911 [public domain]
My formal public Craft name, Clio Ajana, was not my first initial name. It took me nearly two years to figure out what worked and what might not. The actual use of the name was a fluke: I mistakenly used it one time with in a vague reference outside my tradition. Due to the sacredness of the name, Clio Ajana immediately became my public name, while the other, which had never been uttered publicly, remains a private initiatory name.
The name suits me as I am proudly in service to the Muses (yes, all of them), including the muse of history, Clio. My last name is a reminder of the necessity to focus through my third eye in my devotion and my service.
It was only after using my name publicly for awhile that I realized the choice to have a deity as a part of a public name, no matter how minor the name might seem, bonds the individual in a powerful manner. The taking of the name in a way is itself a ritual, a type of theurgy in a collaborative sense. Since that time, when I see those who have willingly taken on the name of a deity, I admire the strength that person will either have or gain from the evolving bond with the deity through the use of the name.
I also smile as I recall the joy and pain on my own path through such a choice.
Looking back at my first Pagan Pride, I remember noticing two things: first, nearly everyone had a chosen name that varied in some way from a legal or given name, and second, many had multiple traditions that some times required multiple names.
At that time I was much too shy to ask anyone about how a name was chosen or the importance of names to one’s path. In fact, I was too busy drowning in attempts to absorb all of the details surrounding me: rituals, the Besom Brigade, music, and random conversations that didn’t make sense at first, but did later on.
It was only later that I would find from various friends in my own and other traditions the importance of the names as signs of progression within a specific religious path. Just as names are added with progressive initiations, the choice to separate from completed obligations to the gods may result in giving up a name. Likewise, the decision to change traditions may result in changing or getting a new name to match the deities or styles in the new tradition.
What I did discover was the farther along a person has been in the Pagan/Heathen/polytheist communities, the more the lines become blurred. Someone who has been in a few decades might have gone through several stages of names only to return to an original given or legal name. Although the gods never forget, I sometimes wonder if one of the first gifts someone can give to a new initiate or even a neophyte or devotee would be a book or an app that will keep track of all the names that might (or might not) be used over the course of a Pagan/Heathen/polytheist career. The choice to keep, blend in, or return to one’s legal or formal name besides being indicative of how long one has been in the Craft also marks one’s level of comfort.
The comfort level may be indicated by use of a dual name, a blend of Craft name and legal or nick name.
How we choose to be called by others, what we choose to call ourselves (or are called) when we are in different communities, and what we call ourselves alone and the gods matters. Taking a moment to think about how one gets a name and what it says about the individual’s life really is important.
Our names are a part of us, from the ones that are given to us at birth to our nicknames, our names upon marriage, divorce, entering and exiting an religious tradition, or even the ones we choose to leave behind just because we do not like them or they do not fit us. What’s in a name is a life time journey, a choice, a manner of hiding a secret openly, a manner of embracing the full self.
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