What’s In a Name? – February 20, 2000
Every child receives a surname at birth to identify it with its family. Often its given name comes from a friend or relative, the hope being that the child may take on the character traits or talents of that person.
It isn’t long before the child’s personality flowers and a new identity asserts itself. As the book of Proverbs teaches, “Even a child is known by his doings.”1 But some behavior may bring about new names or labels that can be negative or limiting—names that foster feelings of alienation or inferiority. Offensive names are demeaning and hurtful. A study on school safety reported that “fourth through twelfth graders around the nation . . . mentioned name-calling . . . as the most common trigger for violence.”2 The old adage “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me” may be true physically, but emotional damage almost always results.
Respecting the proper names of others can lead to understanding and friendship. A young woman who had recently moved to a new neighborhood of mostly elderly residents made it a point to learn the names of all the people on her street. At the time of her arrival, the neighbors seemed standoffish and aloof. But as she greeted them personally by name each day, they warmed to her. One of her new friends said, “I didn’t think anyone your age would be interested in someone as old as me.”
The names we’re born with can change as life changes us. The change in a person’s name becomes symbolic of these major changes in life. It may be a realization of what our family name represents, and the desire to live up to it. It may come in joining with someone in marriage to create a new family. It may come with the wish to strengthen our relationship with God.
God gave Abram, Jacob, and Saul new names, and with those names came a vision of what they were to become. Receiving a new name means taking on a new responsibility in what it stands for. Being called by that name means being committed to what we are striving to be.
Program #3679
1. Proverbs 20:11.
2. Quoted in Ellen Graham, “Language of Childhood: No Expletives Deleted,” The Wall Street Journal, 17 July 1995, B-1.