“Names are choices—just usually not ours.”
names
’Names Have Power’: A Reading List on Names, Identity, and the Immigrant Experience
Whether adding a hyphen or changing one’s name completely, the process of naming can be complex.
“Do You Get Shit for Your Name?”
When your name is Osama and you’re living in post-9/11 America, you always know The Question is coming.
Other Rachel Lyons
Having a fairly common name gives Rachel Lyon occasional glimpses into the lives of her doppelgangers — and the roads she has not taken.
Other Rachel Lyons
Having a fairly common name gives Rachel Lyon occasional glimpses into the lives of her doppelgangers — and the roads she has not taken.
Other Rachel Lyons
Having a fairly common name gives Rachel Lyon occasional glimpses into the lives of her doppelgangers — and the roads she has not taken.
The Power of a Neighborhood’s Name
When Google Maps’ data renamed an African American neighborhood, it opened up residents to the looming forces of gentrification.
The Other National Pastime: Unusual Baby Names
“Brayden” and “Nevaeh” have got nothing on their 17th-century predecessors, “Waitstill” and “Supply.”
Notes from a Baby-Names Obsessive
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.
On Falsely Laying Claim to a Literary Lineage
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 […]