Introduction

Name Identity and Social Control

From the moment we are born, every human is given a name. Reflective of culture, time period, and familial influence, this name acts as a symbolic extension to the outside world, and is a direct connection to self-identity: we respond to our individual names in public spaces, sign legally-binding documents with them, and recall faces when certain names are said. 

Yet at the same time, the power of a name can often be skewed to fit into changing social climates, and channeled into a form of hegemonic domination. When my grandfather immigrated to the United States from Japan, his name was legally changed by the government to ‘Ben’ for ease of assimilation, replacing his birth name of ‘Hitoshi.’ The ability for our society to force new names upon incoming immigrants, or to Anglicize exotic place-names to accommodate Western language, contributes to a long history of subconscious control by a dominant culture. 

This raises important questions: how much of our identity resides in our names, and how intrinsic or arbitrary can names be? Do we use names out of laziness or societal expectation, or is there an indefinable spark of self that a proper name contributes? Similarly, how does reclamation of something as simple as a name empower our self-possession? Using five examples from historical, literary, and popular media, I will examine how names have been used for social control, but can also be reclaimed as a point of personal self-awareness.

The Truth Behind a "True Name"

Socrates and the Intrinsic Nature of Language

In Plato’s dialogue Cratylus*, Socrates helps to moderate a debate as to whether language, specifically names, has intrinsic value or is only assigned meaning by societal definitions. While it is difficult for this layman to understand the philosophical details of the entire debate, the main argument between Hermogenes and Cratylus  was “about the ‘correctness of names’ – what makes a name a correct name?” This question is at the core of my own research. 

As a believer of naturalism, Cratylus “holds that all names – a loose linguistic category, understood as including common nounds and adjectives as well as proper names – belong naturally to their nominata. Each thing has its own natural name: call it anything else, and that is not its name at all.” This natural name is also referred to as a ‘true name,’ and is foundational to the belief that a name already resonates within us, and has a primal connection to our purest self. If a horse is a Horse in a natural sense, then calling it a Cat does not resonate as its true name. Following this reasoning, if a woman is named 'Michelle' but she believes her true name to be 'Elizabeth,' then her natural name can be 'Elizabeth' and no other.

In contrast, Hermogenes argues that “nothing but arbitrary convention determines what is the name of what. If his parents named him Hermogenes… that is all it takes or could take to make Hermogenes his name. Any given human group, of whatever size has complete power to determine for itself its names for things.”  Unlike Cratylus’ belief, the idea of conventionalism states that a name can be arbitrarily bestowed upon us, as is often done by parents. Then, through outward measure, we place meaning into the name. Using the scenerio above, a woman named 'Michelle' can believe herself to be an 'Elizabeth,' but is defined by her name's convention as deigned by her parents.

While neither position is ever deemed ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect,’ it’s important for the sake of this project to be aware of the two schools of thought regarding name and identity. Both sides are significant to determining the innate worth of our names, and function as different angles to perceive the following examples.

*See 'Works Cited' page for details.

Robinson Crusoe

“At last he lays his head flat upon the ground, close to my foot, and sets my other foot upon his head, as he had done before; and after this made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude, and submission imaginable… I let him know his name should be Friday, which was the day I saved his life: I called him so for the memory of the time.  I likewise taught him to say Master; and then let him know that was to be my name.” - Robinson Crusoe, page 121

 
In Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe takes on an indigenous native as a manservant after saving his life from attacking cannibals. After years of living alone on the island, the unexpected introduction of a new man sparks an interesting reaction: rather than treat him as a friend, Robinson Crusoe automatically claims him as his slave. Constructing a power dynamic between them, Crusoe christens him Friday and becomes his master by placing his foot on Friday’s head.

In this small moment, Defoe highlights an understood aggression of dominant culture on a minority, as well as Crusoe’s instinctive desire to suppress anything outside of Western values. He “made [Friday] know his name” with little regards to the one he already has; as if Friday has no true identity before Crusoe saves him, he assimilates seemingly easily to a new lifestyle without any regards to his previous history (121). 

The name as ‘Friday’ is telling in itself, as Crusoe decides on a human male’s name by the day of the week, rather than by personality or some deeper aspect. Friday is barely better than the parrot that Crusoe trains, or the “faithful” cats and dogs that accompany him in the early years on the island (61). Such a meager consideration in naming him angles towards the aforementioned argument by conventionalist Hermogenes. If name identity is so crucial and innate, it could not be handed out as carelessly as Crusoe does. Yet if viewed in the natural sense, the casual name is the greatest insult to Friday, who had an inherent name within him without the help of his white master. Indeed, the erasure and replacement of his indigenous name is a greater sign of his imprisonment than any chain could be. 

In his own adoption of the persona, Friday becomes the obedient savage, eager to learn the ways of his wise owner. Without question, he follows the guidelines of his new lifestyle, and is never seen reflecting on his former existence. When asked if he would return to his cannibalistic ways once reunited with his home country, Friday vehemently denounces his old heathen ways and praises the Christian values (281). At peace with a Western name and a Western practicality, he is prepared to spread his new beliefs. The symbolic renaming – and Christian rebirth – completely alters his self-identity. If Crusoe had allowed him to keep his original name, or even took the time to learn it before the absolute replacement, perhaps the perception of Friday would have been different. In giving Friday a name before his adoption, Defoe might have given him a humanity and equal footing in society. Regardless of argument, both Hermogenes and Cratylus agreed that a proper name gives some innate rights to a person. We view that person as a uniquely labeled individual, and can never separate the name from the body. But since Crusoe named Friday, he becomes a creator-figure, granting a new identity.

Spirited Away

Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 Japanese movie Spirited Away also reckons with the true power of name identity. In the movie, a young girl named Chihiro is swept into a spiritual realm after her parents are kidnapped, and must work at a magical bathhouse to win their freedom from the house mistress Yubaba. 

When she first signs her work contract, Chihiro’s name is literally taken from her by her new mistress through magic, until only a fractional kanji character of her name remains; owning her name characters, Yubaba owns her connection to the human world, and any passage back. With the new name ‘Sen,’ she becomes more immersed in the fantasy and begins to lose grip of the person she once was. Her only confidante in the spiritual world is Haku, a mysterious boy who cannot remember his original name either. Without that key information, he only had Yubaba’s construction of an identity to live off of, and by forgetting his true name, he has also lost any previous memories. During her first day of work, Haku warns Chihiro that if she fully forgets her true name also, she will be forever trapped without any lingering ties to her humanity. When analyzing this cinematic motif, scholar Ando Satoshi states that "being called Sen signifies her lost, or dispossessed, identity; and she almost forgets her own name when she is talking to Haku early one morning in the flower garden and when she yells ‘I’m Sen’ to her parents in the pigsty." Just that quickly, she is as rootless as she is nameless, trying to forge a new identity and life with the name she has left. 

As a metaphor, the loss of her name represents a greater loss of a psychological past: the film suggests our memories are associated with name and sense of self, and cannot exist without some self-sustained frame of conscience. The metaphor also implies that we must retain our personal values regardless of the external pressures around us; while in the public eye, she must be the false character of Sen, but in her own mind, no one can take the name ‘Chihiro’ away from her. By protecting her name within, Chihiro is also protecting her own beliefs and the intrinsic values that make up her own being.

The reclamation of identity through personal name is the crux of the movie, and when Chihiro’s love helps Haku remember his name, he becomes ultimately free, regaining control of his own identity and self-worth, and breaking Yubaba’s spell. When Chihiro also remembers her name and her original desire to find her parents, she suddenly finds the internal courage to leave the bathhouse and stand up to Yubaba. She aligns herself with Yubaba’s good sister Zeniba, who reminds her to always believe in her purest principles. Preparing to win back her parents, Chihiro tells Zeniba “I just want you to know my real name [before I leave]! It's Chihiro!” to which Zeniba replies “oh, what a pretty name! Be sure to take good care of it, dear!” By sharing her real name with someone who cares for her, Chihiro is empowering herself, and allowing someone else to know her true identity. Much like The Handmaid’s Tale, revealing a true name is one of the most intimate secrets a person can have, and Chihiro is brave enough to expose it to Zeniba.

While a children’s movie, Spirited Away addresses the fear of losing one’s true self through the act of name taking, and the courage it takes to believe in oneself despite the pressures of society.

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale is another example of how stripping name acts as a removal of power. After a radical coup occurs in the distant future of America, men seize control over women, and force them into hyper-submissive social roles. 

June, the main protagonist, is renamed Offred, or “of Fred,’ as a display of her new husband’s authority in all parts of her life; over time, she is forced to bear his child and act as a slave in his household. When first addressing it, she says that her name “isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden. I tell myself it doesn't matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter” (14.37). While she wants to believe that a name only has outward value, it is meaningful that she inwardly disagrees. A name acts as a form of self-governance in this dystopian environment, and the control of her body is in direct accordance to the control of name. Again, the symbolic removal of a given name acts as the lynchpin to which her husband gains supreme identity control. 

When with other handmaids, women reclassified to be servants and surrogate mothers, she recounts that “[they] learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other's mouths. In this way we exchanged names from bed to bed: Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June.” (1.5-6). It is subversive to share their true names with each other, but the rebellion gives them power if just for a moment. 

Still, in the public sphere, they are objects of property and must interact with others accordingly. On her daily walk, Offred is accompanied by a mysterious woman named Ofglen. Though they can never reveal their true names and become genuinely familiar with each other, they eventually become good friends. However, “on a certain day she simply wasn't there anymore, and this one was there in her place…"I am Ofglen," the woman says. Word perfect. And of course she is, the new one, and Ofglen, wherever she is, is no longer Ofglen. I never did know her real name. That is how you can get lost, in a sea of names. It wouldn't be easy to find her, now” (44.15). Ofglen as she was once known is quickly replaced by a new Ofglen, suggesting that in this society, name is merely an attribute of ownership, rather than an innate personal identifier. Notably, her loss is impossible to trace without knowing her original name. 

In the end, Offred makes a bid to escape the humiliating society by aligning with a compassionate chauffeur named Nick. Right before the book ends, she “tell[s] him [her] real name, and feel that therefore [she is] known” (41.19). Beyond a connection to the public world, Offred reaffirms that her name is a direct way to know her true self.