The Commonality of Humanity; The things that make us one (6) – Naming!

Intro! When God created man, He gave the first man the task of naming the animals and the living creatures around him. When a mother gives birth to a child, the next most important event she looks forward to is naming the baby. Often times, the mother and the father of that child spend months or weeks deciding on what name to give to that child. Loving parents seek the best name with a good meaning. When an adventurer or researcher or inventor makes a new discovery, he/she gives it a new name. When a family gets a pet, they pick a name for it. Pets and trained animals in a zoo respond to their names. I once watched a video on MSNBC’s ‘Caught on Camera’ of an elephant in a zoo attacking one of his handlers. When the other handlers rushed to the scene, they kept calling the name of that elephant and that helped stop the elephant from causing more harm to the injured handler. Names are important and they hold a special significance for God, for man and even for lower animals!

The commonality! The focus of this ‘Commonality of Humanity’ series is to highlight the common things that makes every human being on earth one. The things that tie us together in a common humanity! I’ve mentioned some things in the part 1 to 5 of this series. The idea is not to sound philosophical or highfalutin but to bring out commonsense points about the commonalities of the human race. For part 6, I’m focusing on naming. I know we all bear different names depending on our language or place of origin. Nonetheless, the fact is that we all have names. Every human being has a name; a proper name given to him by his parents, guardian or anyone entrusted with his or her care. Consequently, as humans, we name animals, plants and any other animate or inanimate object we see, hear or come across in one way or the other. Any precious thing we own, we give them names: from pets to home-made objects; from jewelries to items we inherited from our loved ones or parents. The names we give are different and they bear our varied interests and backgrounds. But what I find so common is the act of giving names. The process of giving a specific and proper name to our valued possessions is one of the things that make us one. Naming is a commonality.

Names! What is a name? Wikipedia.org defines a name as a ‘word or term used for identification.’ It also defines a personal name as that which ‘identifies a specific unique and identifiable individual person’ and a proper name is ‘the name of a specific entity’ and it’s ‘a proper noun.’ While we may have common names like man, woman, etc., I’m more interested in proper names like James, Jane, Janet, etc. We all have proper names. Even people who live in remote places of the world far from modern civilization have proper names in their spoken language. We cherish naming the things that are valuable to us. I have a pot that I’ve been cooking with for years and have outlived other pots that came before and after it. Hence I named it ‘Loyalty.’ It’s an inanimate object. It can’t respond if I call it Loyalty. Nevertheless, I’m delighted to have given it a name that reflects its servitude and usefulness to me. I’m delighted at naming an inanimate object. Now, think of the joy of naming a baby, pet and other animate entities! How pleased we are of having the privilege of naming them! How excited we must be when they respond to that name! 

Meaning of Names and Change of Names! More importantly, every name has a meaning. The meaning of a name is so very important, if not even more important than the process of naming. We often pick names of items that reflect our thoughts, feelings, impressions, and opinions about those items. The name we pick, good or bad, can be a reflection of the reputation of that item we are naming. Good names often for a good reputation; bad names for a bad image. Sometimes, names are picked randomly without much thought to the meaning of such names. That shouldn’t be the case. From early times, the meaning of names bore special significance. Personal names were changed in Bible times to reflect change in social status or position. Abram and his wife Sarai, both have their names changed to Abraham and Sarah respectively. There were characters in the Bible that had names with bad meaning and they lived up to their bad names. Take Nabal the first husband of Abigail. He acted foolishly. This was what the wife said of him in 1 Samuel 25:25 (New International Version): “He is just like his name – his name means Fool, and folly goes with him.” On the other hand, there were good names and the owners of those names lived up to them. Take Samuel, the son of Hannah. She named her son Samuel meaning ‘God has heard’ and Samuel later heard God’s voice and led a worthy life. Don’t get me wrong; having a good birth name does not guarantee a lifetime of goodness. There are those who are named ‘Innocent’ but they are everything but innocent. Nevertheless, every venture deserves a good start. We can’t tell the end from the beginning but a good beginning carries the promise of a good ending. Therefore, every child deserves a good start and every loved possession deserves a good name. Let us find out the meaning of the names we give before we give them. It’s not everything but it’s surely a good start.

Animals too name their kind in their own way! Wikipedia.org (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name) states, ‘The use of personal names is not unique to humans. Dolphins also use symbolic names, as has been shown by recent research. Individual dolphins have distinctive whistles, to which they will respond even when there is no other information to clarify which dolphin is being referred to.’ It then referenced the link to a study on National Geographic News online (news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060508_dolphins.html). The site made mention of Vincent Janik of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, who was the lead author of the study. The report published in 2006 studied wild bottlenose dolphins in a Florida Bay. It was shown that the dolphins have names. These names were in form of unique signature whistles developed by the dolphins from infancy. Recordings of the whistles were made and with the aid of computers and underwater loudspeakers, the whistling sounds were played to the hearing of the dolphins and the result: ‘The team found that the listening dolphins responded strongly to recordings  of the names of their relatives and close group members but largely ignored those of other dolphins.’ Janik also stated that it’s possible that some birds also use names to communicate with each other. He said: “Parrots have a very similar social structure to dolphins, and it seems they may have a similar [naming] system.” 

In conclusion! Sometimes a name is everything. Sometimes a good name is something. A good name is a good start. Now, why do we love giving lovely and meaningful names to the things we own? We have the innate desire to name everything. Why do we change names to reflect a new status or meaning? In some cultures, it’s acceptable for a married woman to change her surname to that of her husband’s and I know a lot of women who do it with delight, ‘I’m Mrs. so and so…’ They are deservedly delighted! Even those who don’t change their names for cultural or religious reasons are delighted and proud of bearing their family name. Some even combine their own surname with that of their husband’s. The reason we all delight in names is simple. We were all created by the one God who has a personal name, Jehovah, and Jehovah God delights in naming his creations. Hence, he tasked the first man, Adam, to name his living creatures. The spontaneity we feel in naming things is not a by-product of some evolutionary mischief. It’s a telling sign of the commonality of all humans: we were created by one God whose name is Jehovah. The online version of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures published by Jehovah’s Witnesses (www.jw.org/en/publications/bible) states in Isaiah 40:26: “Raise your eyes high up and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who is bringing forth the army of them by number, all of whom he calls even by name.” It also states in Psalm 147:4: “He [Jehovah God] is counting the number of the stars; all of them he calls by [their] names.”In Exodus 33:12, God says of Moses: “I do know you by name.” God knows us by name. He delights in us having a good name. A good name with God means much more than a mere name. But, having a well-meaning name is a good start with God. He made us and so we are named!