Names

Every now and then, there are comments about name choices – especially Pagan names.

I’ve been known to snicker at more than a few of them, myself, through the decades.

I know at least 6 women calling themselves “Silver” and one other whose birth name is “Silver”. I can’t tell you how many “Wolf” this or that’s I know, along with “Raven”, “Shadow”, “Fox”, “Eagle”, and “Bear” something or others.

I’m guilty, myslef, of having a variety of names. “Ebonypearl”, the name I use on this lj, was the name of the imaginary pirate ship I captained as a child high in the branches of a chinaberry tree. “Noddy” is a nickname that was derived from my frequently mispronounced middle name, Indigo which was often pronounced as Nodigio. “Starsight” was a nickname I picked up in college because I was always out looking at the stars and could tell stories about all of them – not just constellations, but individual stars themselves. I made up civilizations on them and told of their tragedies and triumphs and would report on “current events”, and so the other students started calling me “Starsight”. In the SCA, I had several well developed personas, each with their name and backstory. In SF fandom, I was known either as Gridley or Galileo (for the Enterprise’s shuttle). And I’ve published assorted things under a variety of nome de plumes because in the publishing field, sometimes the publisher owns the name under which the book is published, so you can’t use that name in a different genre. I think that’s utterly silly, but there you go.

So I have lots of names for lots of reasons. Still, I generally only go by my real name and by my primary nickname.

As for my children’s names, I gave them several to pick from: a conventional name that was a bit unique but not too much so, a fun name, a heritage name, and, of course, the family name. And I made sure the initials couldn’t be turned into something rude. Silly, perhaps, but not rude. And the wider range of names gave them the chance to mix and match, to choose which name they wore for which occassion, and it gave us the opportunity to find a lot of different nicknames. Except, often enough, the nicknames came from something they did, like my son who adored beans and ate the mashed ones through a straw, thus immortalizing himself as “Beaners”.

I agree with many other people that creating a “magical” name, especially when that name is used for other purposes than magical or spiritual, is a silly endeavor, full of misunderstandings about what the name is for and why. Making a name up or panicking because you don’t have the “proper” magical name is trivial when there are so many more important things to consider upon being Pagan.

I’m still going to laugh at names like “Silver PixyWing”.

And if anyone expects me to minister to them (no one does, right? I’ve educated everyone into understanding I’m a priest, not a minister, right?), they’d better give me the name they wear for the police and hospitals and lawyers and funeral directors to use, not the one they wear for other circumstances.