You can’t be bothered, but you would never have guessed too that many smart people have spent a great amount of time and energy trying to figure out what a name is. Around the world in different languages, in academic fields of study like semiotics, linguistics, syntactics, semantics and pragmatics, scholars have taken the investigation to greater heights, engaging over competing discourses jabbed with paradoxical ramblings, all fascinating but getting nowhere near the truth. This I know because I am someone who loves to study characters by their names. No name is a silly name. Every name has an origin.
We know that Joe is a name just because, naturally, we know people whose name is Joe. Dick is a personal name as well as a slang name for you know what. Cox can be a derivation of something else to become a given name. Bobo is a unisex name. Misty is just an adjective until it becomes a name. Or a name of the song sung by the Japanese duo with a kinky group name. Charcoal is just an object until it becomes a drug name, a trade name or a common name of an element.
Jackson is a classic example of a first name and a last name mixed together to confuse people. According to a research, it is the 13th most common last name, where 0.31% of last names in the US are Jackson; think Michael Jackson and the entire Jackson 5, plus Janet Jackson, Latoya Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Curtis Jackson, Bobby Jackson, Dexter Jackson, Edwin Jackson, Jesse Jackson and all other Jacksons who are blacks, except Peter Jackson, who is white, and who is not American actually. Jackson is also a surname, and a cognomen, and patronymic (go and figure yourself). Jackson Jackson is a two men hip-hop group name from downunder that I never heard of until two minutes ago. In addition, Jackson is a family name or probably a maiden name. Otherwise we have Philips, which is primarily a last name before a brand name. Michael Dell is a normal name until it became a literal company name that sells reasonable prices laptops. Unless it’s prefixed with Greek or Latin roots, it will not be a synthesized name, like Oracle, or better still, Microsoft. Newton, which is basically a dead alchemist’s surname, became a symbol to denote a unit of force, and it can have a designation that is truly a personal name, except that we Singaporean’s recognize it as a street name or a station name. Add “Circus” to that and you’ll have a perfectly bizarre name for a greasy eatery where people spend time to pass time or get fat.
Nicknames, or hypocorisms, which are truly fake names, can be more significant than the original names. Moniker is a slangy nickname while epithets are usually unkind nicknames like Dickhead or Cokebloat or Kerenteng Bastard. Sobriquets are fancy name most profound in politics, or nicknames for people who wish they spoke French. Dubium names are names that are intended for a wicked game of hoax. Callnames are names of two or many separate entities formed into a word, very much similar to synthesized names, only not so formal. Pet names are never for your pets. Brangelina is a sensationalized portmanteau. But Pittolie is way way unique, only overly underused in media coverages.
Now, what is a christened name? What is not a christened name? Who actually christened a christened name? Elle, Ellie, Ellen, Ello, Hello, Hella, Hellen, Hena, Hyena, Hydra, Adrian, Elephant, Eliza, Emylia, Umbrella, Ella, Ella?
Pen names and stage names are pseudonyms used by talented people like Agatha Christie and Mary Westmacott, both of whom are the same author writing under nom de guerres. Lisa del Giocondo is the official name for Mona Lisa, and vice versa. If you are reluctant to release your true name under critical circumstances, create a bogus name for yourself. It is not a crime. But it can be your crime name for all its worth.
Dahlia Adams is a fictional name from the ghost of distant past. It could also be a character name. It could also be an alias of a real name. It is in fact a namegram of my legal, formal name that I share with a deceased artist. It is, however, not an appellative, but a cognomen of a genuinely spurious identity.
And then we have Madally Wurlpiz.
Madally Wurlpiz is not a name. It is 32% riddle, 18% oxygen and 50% enhanced symmetric encryption utilities that will be available on your system if you decide to grace my domain or invade my privacy, which ever you find coolest.
What’s in a name actually? Just alphabets arranged to form an appropriate beat of diphthongs or digraphs in a series of organized ligatures? No, a name is just a name, attached to someone or something or someplace. A name does not mean anything until you characterized it. Until you give it a life.
Maybe no one have told you this before, but yes, you do have a nice name.
Thoughts without faces ~ faces without souls ~ souls lay lifeless, nameless. Uphold and protect your stature.
