I'll Tell You What's In a Name

It matters what names we give our children. Names are anchors to our past and ideals to be sought after. We must eschew the notion that the best names for our children are those which “sound” the best when we say it. I implore everyone to think carefully about this, not just because names stick with us our whole lives, but because they carry a certain dignity with them that demands careful attention.

I became enamored with the history and meaning of words as a kid. You’ll never know how awestruck little six-year-old Spencer felt when he discovered occupational surnames. You mean Smiths were black-, silver-, or goldsmiths? Coopers made barrels? Fletchers made arrows? Awesome! It was revelatory. I actually do recall being disappointed that my elementary school brain was right that Johnson just meant son of John. It felt too simple, there was no mystique, and most importantly to me at the time: I didn’t learn anything new. I was most certainly wrong to be dismayed, I would later find out. Around this same time my mom gifted my sister and I each a framed image with our first name and a short etymology. “Spencer, English, Dispenser of Provisions” it said. As simple as it was, it cemented my nascent love of etymology, and later, linguistics (even though I didn’t know either of those words yet).

I was most certainly that child who was always asking “Why?” Frankly, I still am that person. My childhood love of words led me to take a History of English Linguistics class in college. Consequently, I can now recite the Lord’s Prayer (Fæder Ure) in Old English. One of the things my English professors spent a good amount of time on when studying early English masterworks like Beowulf is the significance of names. “Hrothgar” is simply a weirdly spelt given name that has an uncomfortable mouthfeel at first. It means nothing when you don’t speak his language. Yet the mighty “Fame Spear” speaks to his character and his exploits before they are even mentioned. Names change spelling, pronunciation, and cultural significance over time, can you imagine telling your friend Roger that his name indicates he is, or ought to be, a famous spearman?

Cultural Entropy

I can only imagine that losing touch with what our names mean must be a uniquely American phenomenon, or at least one in highly multicultural countries. “Spencer” is just some series of letters and sounds that denotes me as a specific person. To our ears today there is no remnant of the occupation that nearly a thousand years ago created my name. If I were to travel to 13th century France or Norman England and introduce myself as Spencer, they would ask me to take inventory or fetch something from the larder. Spencer is descended from Old French despencier meaning butler, steward, or someone who is otherwise in charge of household provisions. Today it has no such meaning in the United States. Just a sound.

We are separated by time, geography, and culture to such an extent that very few of our given and surnames actually remind us of the real words they come from. Some exceptions would include my sister’s name: Grace. We know people who have names similarly based on theological virtues like Hope, Faith, Charity, Chastity, and of course, Christian. Can’t forget that Christina and Christopher both also mean Christian. I have known people with seasonal names like April, May, June, Summer, Autumn, and Winter (I haven’t met a woman named Fall or Spring yet). These names are the exceptions that prove the rule, we just don’t know what most of our names mean.

Some of the religious names have preserved their meaning in the broader culture just through the sheer significance of their first bearer. Every girl named Sarah knows it means Princess in Hebrew. Israel retains it’s meaning of “to wrestle with God” through the incredibly important story of Jacob’s wrestling with the Angel of the Lord. Peter was famously renamed by Christ to be the rock upon which the church was founded, yet Simon still exists as a common given name too but its meaning (“he heard”) is not nearly as well remembered. How many people know what an incredible statement of faith they are making every time they say “Hi!” to their friend Michael? “Who is like God?” is a powerful phrase to name one’s child.

All the common names of today that include -el- all reference attributes of, or statements about, the Judeo-Christian God. Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Israel, Ezekiel, Daniel etc. How different would our culture be if we named our children “God is my judge” “God strengthens” “God is salvation” in plain English? Names have power. They can be aspirational, as in our dear “Fame Spear” from earlier. They can be descriptive, such as my own - even though I am not taking inventory of the pantry as a profession. They can be fundamental statements, like these Hebrew names. It matters what we name our children, names are a distinctly human phenomenon.

The obfuscation of name meanings through time and translation can have some pretty disastrous ramifications. I saw this video on Twitter (I don’t use TikTok) of a woman discrediting the whole of Christianity purely based on the perceived mundanity of the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Her complaint is that these allegedly ancient Middle Eastern men had names she considered far too modern and American. In one sense she is correct to assume that those names are not what the four evangelists would have called themselves, because we have Anglicized them. However, her lack of deeper thought has prevented her from learning the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew renderings these men did have in their own day. English John, Dutch Johan, Spanish Juan, Italian Giovanni, Russian Ivan, Latin Iohannes, they are all the same name. I half-jokingly quipped on Twitter that etymology classes must be made mandatory in public schools immediately. I do feel that being so estranged from the names we give our children deprives us of a rich cultural heritage, causing us to attempt to recreate a meaningful culture from scratch every single year instead of building upon that which has been given to us by our predecessors.

Name your Children Purposefully

Such cultural illiteracy and lack of understanding what names can truly be leads many parents to pick out names based purely on how they sound or because they know someone with that name. Naming your child in honor of another person is a normal and traditional practice, however it is less traditional to name them after celebrities. Certainly, it’s better than naming them after fictional characters - especially if the character’s name is from a constructed language. Hermione is at least a real name in Greek, the feminine form of Hermes. The poor girls who were named Khaleesi or Daenerys are going to have to have a conversation with their parents at some point.

Truly tragic is the bizarre desire of parents (usually mothers) for their child’s name to be “unique” or to “stand out” for some reason. This whole article from parents.com is absolutely atrocious. Jackson is a fine enough name as it is. Jason is a Greek name of Hebrew origin as Joshua (the Lord is salvation). There is no reason to ruin a perfectly good name by rendering it Jaxson or Jayceson. This spelling change would have been acceptable in the pre-literate period where no one knew how to spell anything at all. In today’s highly literate country there is no reason to misspell your son’s name just like how misspelling any other word is unacceptable. Whether we spell it “to-day” or “today”; “woah” or “whoa” does not matter much, yet even here we have decided one as correct and one incorrect.

We should have a stricter standard, not looser, when it comes to naming people. Your daughter Tiffany could have been a living testament to the day of Epiphany but instead she has to say “Actually, no I am not named after one of the oldest feast days in Christianity, my mom just liked the way it sounded and wanted me to be unique.” Now she has to spell her name Teighfaneigh or something else equally unnecessary.

We tell stories when we name our children. We can honor family members or important friends with their given names. Our surnames are links to our historical roots, these things actually matter to us. Or at least, they ought to. My last name is Johnson. As such, I know for a fact that at some point in the distant past, I have an ancestor named John from a Scandinavian country (where the naming custom is to take the father’s first name and append -son or -daughter after it.) who then moved to the British Isles at a time when the naming custom was to keep your father’s last name exactly. Even further than that, it means some Scandinavian man had been given a name by his parents that was Latin, which itself came from Greek, and itself coming from Hebrew. That’s an interesting story to me, there’s a confluence of at least five different cultures. Who made the move? When? Why? What was it like? There are answers and even more questions to the simple novelty of my very common surname.

Be Dignified

Take pride in your names. Take care in what you name your children. Give them a name, or several, that roots them in their family and cultural history as well as giving them an aspirational goal to live up to. Do not pick a name for no good reason just because it sounds nice when you say it. Would you name your daughter Hard Worker? If not, then don’t name her Amelia. Do you want your son to be a Good Friend? If so, then consider naming him David. The spellings and meanings of these names come to us from history. Don’t change or ignore them for no good reason.

Set your kids up for success, name them with dignity.