"What's in a name?"

"That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet."

Someone just told me that it was strange to hear me say their name. And I thought about it, and really I feel strange whenever someone uses my name. I answer to it, of course, but somehow I don't consider my name a part of me. It's not as though it's a terribly unfit name; it's not a name I especially dislike--I just don't identify myself by my name. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with me as a person--it's just what I am called.

There have been studies showing that a person's name has a significant effect on their personality. I assume this has mostly to do with mispronunciations of the name, misspellings, nicknames, etc. Except I wonder how deep the effect is--as far as I can tell, my name hasn't shaped me very much. But perhaps it has, beyond what I consciously acknowledge. I've tried to think of ways my name is me--connections between myself and what I am called.

My first name, Mary, means "sea of bitterness." I don't think of myself as an especially bitter person, but perhaps I am, deep down. My middle name, Hannah, means "grace." I'd like to think I have an amount of grace, but I suppose there is a lot of evidence to the contrary.

As far as other aspects of the name go:

I have a somewhat cumbersome last name, one that is usually confusing both to say and spell. I can't think of how this may have affected me, but maybe it has. I go by my middle name rather than my first name, which has also proved a bit of a burden. I endured years of--well, I am still enduring, actually--plenty of "Hannah Banana" comments, and now that there's some T.V. show called Hannah Montana, I get that, too. Of course, a person gets tired of laughing politely each time she is placed alongside a fruit (for some reason, people seem to think it's an original joke, one no one has ever said before), but I can't think of any truly distinct effect this has had on me as a person.

Sometimes, though, people's names fit them perfectly. And you wonder if that's just by chance--just a good choice on the parents' part--or whether that person is who they are because of the name. (Which came first, the chicken or the egg?)

One of my very favorite books--it's not about names, but it has to do with them--is Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. In it, the title character--yes, her name is Stargirl--changes her own name periodically. Her original name is Susan, and over the course of her life she changes from that to Mudpie, to Pocket Mouse, to Stargirl (maybe there are a couple more in there I forgot). She says that her name is like a shirt, and when it doesn't fit her anymore, or it gets worn out, she throws it away and gets a new one. I think that's a sensible philosophy on names--your name is, essentially, what defines you in the world; shouldn't you be able to pick it out? Of course, it could get confusing with everyone changing their names all over the place, but really, it makes sense.

I wonder, though--would it really make a difference if people named themselves? I doubt that I would feel my name was any more a part of me if I chose it. That's simply because I think of myself as more than a name; a name is external (for its general purposes), and being inside myself, I imagine myself as so much more than a combination of six letters. Or four letters, or ten, or however many. I don't think of myself as Hannah, or Mary, or Mary Hannah--I think of myself as a thinking living breathing human being, as all the thoughts and feelings I have. Not as a title, not as a name.

So, I wonder, really--what IS in a name? Does your name affect who you are? Does a name have any more significance than a number, really? I think it does. Names have meaning, at least--I think that names do mean something. But does a name mean more to the person who carries it, or the people who use it? Would that which we call a rose by any other word smell as sweet? I wonder.