ALL THE NAMES

My name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more,
Too-late, Farewell.
-D.G. Rossetti
Sonnets from the House of Life

I named my child Ocean for that vast, mysterious shifting expanse. I named her Marissa, that's of the sea - because naming is what we do I guess. There is silliness to us.
-Carole Maso
The Names
(from Conjunctions)

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
-Lao Tzu

William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet not only gave names to millions of babies foreseen to possess true love - Romeo and Juliet - but also provided ode to names, or the acts of naming, themselves: What's in a name? that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.

Ahhh, tell me, what's in a name? Why do people live for a name, work for a name, die for a name? How do parents determine their children's names? What's in a culture that sways naming in a definite way, a certain pattern?

'It's all in the name', said one movie agent, defying logic that what an actor needs to suceed is great acting. A political commentator ascribed to a lonely political truth, 'A candidate's name is a huge factor to winning an election'. And here's an equally sad, but more trivial, truth, per my friend. 'I did not win the girl I'm pursuing because I have an ugly name'. Ugly thought, that.

But the thing is, these thoughts exist and endure; as long as there are people's lives, there'll be people's names, and as long as we cannot see beyond the surface, beyond the names, the naming of names, drawing of names, casting of names, and ridiculing of names will always be a celebrated human indulgence.

Ridicule begins at home. Did I like my name? Uh, do I look screaming proud of it? ^..^ So, which name would I have preferred? I'll tell you, through this short story I wrote many years ago, entitled Tell Me A Story -

Hi. My name is Rain. That may explain a bit about my father's closeness to nature or his conceptual discernment for a son. My mother said he originally thought of Rainforest but changed his mind upon realizing its lack of universality. So he culled the first root word which represented something more mundane and powerful. As he was hoisting me over his head, my father must have boldly conjured images of myself as a monsoon capable of drenching a large part of nature's being with careening frequency - encompassing latitudes, ministering seasons.

So there. I like the name Rain, I like the name Forest (Rain Phoenix, Forest Whitaker, great names, great personalities) and I like them not just for their pleasant, gentle sound, which my ears say is important, but more so for their meanings, their significations, their symbolisms, which my mind argues to be more paramount. I especially like the name Rain, even in its Tagalog translation, Ulan, as in Ulan Sarmiento (but just don't tell me his real name which is atrocious, here I go again). The name bears thinking, bears contemplating, bears deciding, bears asking...tell me a story, about your name, about your nature, about you.

What's in a name that even Shakespeare falls victim to describing - wounded as Horatio; or that drives us to do a Virgil, So long shall your name, your honor and praises endure; or brings Stephen Benet to declare, American names, sharp names that never get fat, (fhat the wuck, what is that?)

Ahhh, names, I remember the time when I attended a baptism in the outskirts of Manila, in a tiny fishing village, my buddies and I were holding a baby in her resplendent white baby gown, petitioning the sacrament for acceptance of her soul, her self, her name to be a part of Us, and when the priest asked the mother, What is the baby's name?, she answered, Sirikit, the priest and the acolyte laughed, betraying their holy ignorance, leaving us to surmise, With this breeze from the sea, with the smell from those fish, the beloved Queen of Thailand decided not to let her nobility known.

Ahhh, names, mysterious names, glowing names, uncharacteristic names, funny names.
I once fell for my friend's show of seriousness, Hey did you know Mel Mathay's son married a girl named Sally Bugna? Wow, what a RIPoff! But life is a joke, so some jokes have life: Bembol Roco's Coco Artadi became Coco Roco, but what if she married Atoy Co without dropping her previous name? She'll be Coco Roco Co. We'll not stop there. What if she got married again, this time to Mr. Paloma without dropping the previous two names. She'll be Coco Roco Co Paloma. In college, we had a friend whose last name is Nambayan, and we laughed because his wife will be Mrs. Nambayan (without thinking that, unfairly, we ridiculed her mom already).

Oh well, what really is in a name? Why not just end it from where we begun? A rose by any name will smell as sweet. Unless it is Vietname Rose.