What's In A Name

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” This is what Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet. I couldn’t help but wonder is the name such a miniscule thing? I decided to dig deep into this matter and what I discovered is interesting to say the least.

When a baby is born the first thing which his/her parents fight upon is the choice of his/her name. Nowadays people will spend hours and days and consult tarot card readers, feng-shui experts, the position of Jupiter and Saturn and God knows what all other things before deciding on a simple thing : the name.

Yes Mr. Shakespeare may have been partially correct in saying that a Rose would smell as sweet even if we call it by some other name, but you got to admit that when we hear about the word Rose, we can’t help but be prejudiced and actually relate it to something sweet. In the movie Titanic, would the story change if instead of Jack and Rose the characters were named Jack and Caterpillar? No. But the writer wanted to portray a girl who is beautiful and sweet and hence the name Rose was chosen. Let’s face it - names do matter. If names don’t matter, then why did a certain Rajiv Hari Om Bhatia rechristened himself to Akshay Kumar? He felt that his name wasn’t catchy enough for the glitz and glamour of the film industry. How many of you all can identify Samuel Langhorne Clemens? Very few or maybe none. But all of you can identify the same person if I call him by the name Mark Twain.

Think of all the bad guys, the villains – a common feature about of all of them is they all have a name which stands them out in the crowd. Tom Marvolo Riddle became Lord Voldemort and proudly stated “I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak “.Gotham City does not fear the person named Jack Napier but they do fear The Joker.

Names can sometime be a dampener too. Anyone named Pappu maybe looked down upon. Think about that poor commentator commentating in a match where Sri Lanka needs 1 run to win of 1 ball and he has to say “Last man in is WarnakuliyaSuriyaPatabadigeUshanthaJosephChaminda Vaas”. The match is over even before he can finish uttering the name.

A name often decides the fate of a person. In the book Freakonomics by two world famous economists Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner there is a chapter which is dedicated on names and how it influences the fate of people. They cite an example from the USA. In USA the most common name for a white girl is Molly while that of a black girl is Imani. Now when these kids were applying for primary school, a black girl named Imani in most of the cases wasn’t selected on some grounds whereas a black girl named Molly got selected. Racism? Maybe but the point which I am trying to put forward is it is the name which eventually made the difference. They also cite a couple of other interesting examples like when a New York based livery-cab driver named Michael Goldberg was shot dead in 2004, it was later discovered that Mr. Goldberg was in fact an Indian born Sikh who thought it advantageous to adopt a Jewish name upon immigrating to New York. They also point out from statistics that sometimes a person tries to live out his/her name. They gave an example of a girl named Temptress who had multiple affairs. She was just trying to do justice to her name.

Now lets talk about inanimate objects and their names. Would Rabindrasangeet change if we call it by some other name? No. But certainly there would be some difference, however minute it may be. There is a saying TATA means trust. Now if suddenly we refer to TATA by some other name, the organization doesn’t change, the protocols don’t change but the familiarity changes. If tomorrow TCS changes its name, can people recognize the company so easily? Well no.

The greatest success for any brand is when its name becomes a verb. We don’t say we are searching for something using Google any more. We say we are Googling or I am Orkutting. Think about the all time classic movies or songs. If we call them by some other name they will remain the same but we will never be able to identify them.

What’s In a Name? Everything’s in a name only. We human beings are mortals but our names are immortal. History doesn’t remember how a person looked like, how he spoke like but it remembers the name as illustrated by the band Fort Minor in their famous song where they speak about life and it states:

This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, fifteen percent concentrated power of will

Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain and a hundred percent reason to Remember the Name.