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Nomenclature (again)
Nov. 23rd, 2003 11:31 amNaming is pretty darned complicated stuff. You'd think it would be easy, considering that as a social species, we seem addicted to asigning classifications and names to things. I struggle most over personal names, followed by gender-based personal name substitutes.
It's probably no surprise that I despise my given names (well, save for the surname; the visual metaphor makes me chuckle sometimes), and it doesn't help that I'm the third iteration of those particular words in combination. I hate the sound of it, the look of it when written; it has the feel of something that belongs to others, not something of my own. I know that this is a purpose of names, structurally speaking, but I don't know if others feel the disjunct like this. Of course, it doesn't help that it's an overtly gendered name (the few innies who lay claim to a variant of my name get the transgressive power of "Oooh, that's a *boy's* name..." and all the implicit homoeroticism it may entail).
All this leads, of course, to the suggestion, "So why don't you pick a new one?" Logically, it makes tons of sense, but practice is much more complicated seeming. There seems to me a higher burden of responsibility for names if one chooses it for onesself; there are no parents or family tradition to blame for touches of pretension, socio-historical connotations, etc. The question of "But why did you choose *that*?" hangs heavily anticipated. Plus, then there's the gender aspect; I don't want an overtly "masculine" name, but I also don't want an overtly "feminine" one, either, and the blandness often associated with "androgyny" (having no traits of either, more often than having bits of both) seems to slip over into too many neither/nor names. And thus have I paralyzed myself into being stuck in an uncomfortable position.
And as for proper noun substitutes, it's almost impossible to escape the genderedness of them. Tell me, what do you call the (innie/outie) child of your sibling, without referencing gender? I toss that out as only one example, but to me, it's much more pervasive than that alone. And if you want to use possessives, it's damned near impossible to do it without gendering unless you always, always use proper nouns (which more often than not, are deeply gendered themselves).
Bah, words suck.
It's probably no surprise that I despise my given names (well, save for the surname; the visual metaphor makes me chuckle sometimes), and it doesn't help that I'm the third iteration of those particular words in combination. I hate the sound of it, the look of it when written; it has the feel of something that belongs to others, not something of my own. I know that this is a purpose of names, structurally speaking, but I don't know if others feel the disjunct like this. Of course, it doesn't help that it's an overtly gendered name (the few innies who lay claim to a variant of my name get the transgressive power of "Oooh, that's a *boy's* name..." and all the implicit homoeroticism it may entail).
All this leads, of course, to the suggestion, "So why don't you pick a new one?" Logically, it makes tons of sense, but practice is much more complicated seeming. There seems to me a higher burden of responsibility for names if one chooses it for onesself; there are no parents or family tradition to blame for touches of pretension, socio-historical connotations, etc. The question of "But why did you choose *that*?" hangs heavily anticipated. Plus, then there's the gender aspect; I don't want an overtly "masculine" name, but I also don't want an overtly "feminine" one, either, and the blandness often associated with "androgyny" (having no traits of either, more often than having bits of both) seems to slip over into too many neither/nor names. And thus have I paralyzed myself into being stuck in an uncomfortable position.
And as for proper noun substitutes, it's almost impossible to escape the genderedness of them. Tell me, what do you call the (innie/outie) child of your sibling, without referencing gender? I toss that out as only one example, but to me, it's much more pervasive than that alone. And if you want to use possessives, it's damned near impossible to do it without gendering unless you always, always use proper nouns (which more often than not, are deeply gendered themselves).
Bah, words suck.
