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names

Posted inEditor's Pick

What’s Not in a Name?

by Cheri Lucas Rowlands January 17, 2022October 19, 2022

“Names are choices—just usually not ours.”

Posted inCulture, Essays & Criticism, Featured, Nonfiction, Reading List

​​’Names Have Power’: A Reading List on Names, Identity, and the Immigrant Experience

by Cheri Lucas Rowlands September 28, 2021October 19, 2022

Whether adding a hyphen or changing one’s name completely, the process of naming can be complex.

hand showing Pakistani passport
Posted inNonfiction

“Do You Get Shit for Your Name?”

by Osama Shehzad August 13, 2020November 4, 2022

When your name is Osama and you’re living in post-9/11 America, you always know The Question is coming.

Posted inEditor's Pick

Other Rachel Lyons

by Sari Botton April 5, 2019October 19, 2022

Having a fairly common name gives Rachel Lyon occasional glimpses into the lives of her doppelgangers — and the roads she has not taken.

Posted inEditor's Pick, Essays & Criticism, Featured, Nonfiction

Other Rachel Lyons

by Rachel Lyon April 5, 2019October 19, 2022

Having a fairly common name gives Rachel Lyon occasional glimpses into the lives of her doppelgangers — and the roads she has not taken.

Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Featured, Nonfiction, Story

Other Rachel Lyons

by Rachel Lyon April 5, 2019October 19, 2022

Having a fairly common name gives Rachel Lyon occasional glimpses into the lives of her doppelgangers — and the roads she has not taken.

Posted inCurrent Events, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes

The Power of a Neighborhood’s Name

by Aaron Gilbreath March 18, 2019October 19, 2022

When Google Maps’ data renamed an African American neighborhood, it opened up residents to the looming forces of gentrification.

Posted inFeatured, Nonfiction, Quotes

The Other National Pastime: Unusual Baby Names

by benhuberman August 4, 2017October 19, 2022

“Brayden” and “Nevaeh” have got nothing on their 17th-century predecessors, “Waitstill” and “Supply.”

Posted inEditor's Pick

Notes from a Baby-Names Obsessive

by benhuberman August 3, 2017October 19, 2022

Names channel our identity — or at least our parents’ idea of our future identity — in ways both big (class, ethnicity) and small (subcultural affiliations, self-awareness). When the mother’s American and the father’s French, things get complicated, fast.

Posted inNonfiction, Quotes

On Falsely Laying Claim to a Literary Lineage

by juliawick July 6, 2015October 19, 2022

The first time I admitted that yes, I was related to Francis Scott Key, it came as a shock, even to me, because, of course, I was lying. While my other college friends experimented with drugs and God, I experimented with genealogy. Soon, I found myself trying to learn to pretend to be a writer […]

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