“Names and surnames are labels,” writes Elena Ferrante, the successful Italian author of the Neapolitan quartet, who has recently published Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey, a book of her letters, essays and interviews. Ferrante, who has chosen to remain anonymous by withholding … [Read more...]
Transgender Identity and the Significance of Name-Changing
Since the 1990’s, there has been a significant increase of transgenderism in the public domain. Increased media visibility with multiple reports on a variety of issues have surfaced, from questions of choice, normality, transidentity to name only a few. These have been discussed … [Read more...]
The Sound of Our Name
A birth. A breath. A cry of being. Following this, an act of nomination and a new name that will identify the newborn as a unique individual. Generative language is the distinctive characteristic of our species; and the act of naming separates us from the rest of the animal … [Read more...]
When a Culture is No Longer Inclusive: Name-Changing and the Unfortunate Compulsion to Lie About Who We Are
Our name is like an elongated shadow attached at our heels. A tenacious sign of identification, it is intimately connected with our identification. While our first name is given to us lovingly and tenderly by our parents (or parent surrogates), our surname connects us to our … [Read more...]
An interview with WGTD’s Greg Berg
In a recent interview on WGTD’s Morning Show, Greg Berg and I discussed a number of themes drawn from The Power of Names. Our discussion touched on the different meanings attributed to our first and last names, as well as the topic of name-changing as a way of assimilating to a … [Read more...]