Names.

[Hampshire]

@Alice_The_Goon

I think it’s weird that all three of my sons are exactly the person that their name suggests. Scott is such a Scott, Jamie is totally a Jamie, and Nathan couldn’t have been anything but a Nathan.

:dubious: Those names don’t conjure any type of traits that I’m aware of. Now if their names were Sluggo, Pointdexter, and Don-Juan you might have something there.

(Scott? Like Scott Baio, Scottie Pippen, Scott Bakula, Scott Farkus)

[Beware_of_Doug]

@Autolycus

Names have power.

I, for one, believe this. Maybe not the name you’re given, but the name you choose or that chooses you is going to be at the center of your psyche. It might not dominate, but it’s part of you.

Say, if Lyman is called Biff from age two, then he will always be more Biff than Lyman. He’s going to greet the world as a Biff would, and move through it with Biff-nature. He will prefer chicken wings to Caesar salad, Tammys to Juliets, golf to tennis and poli sci to sociology, if that’s what Biffs usually do.

In the Old Testament (or at least magick books of that era) knowing somebody’s true name meant having power over them. I imagine that somewhere out there is a true language, where the words for an object mean conjuring up the essence of that object, granting power over it. If that sounds weird, then oh well

I don’t think you get power over the object (certainly not over the person!!), but you do grant it power over you. I, for one, am usually more interested in a woman with a classic name like Elizabeth or Laura than one with a trendy name like Kimberly or Dawn. I don’t quite know why, but I have ideas.

[Drunky_Smurf]

Vox Imperatoris your name is Daniel and I think of two Daniels when I see Daniel. The first is Daniel Jackson and he’s smart and cool. So that’s good.

The second is the character Daniel that French Stewart played on an episode of That 70’s Show where Kelso was trying to win a van from a radio contest by which who ever kept their hand on the van the longest would win the van and French Stewart as Daniel walks up and gives this speech about how he wins every contest and then as he plants his hand on the van proclaims, “I AM DANIEL!”

So yeah Daniel is a good solid name.

For me names are not an important aspect of who we are but sometimes they do carry a certain descritpive factor, for me, in that I know people from my past who had a certain name and then behaved in a certain way and then in the future I meet another person with that name and I sort of assign those behaviors to the new person at first. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.

But hey, I’m a Kevin and as we all know Kevin’s are awesome. For proof see “K” from Men in Black.

[Hampshire]

@Beware_of_Doug

Say, if Lyman is called Biff from age two, then he will always be more Biff than Lyman. He’s going to greet the world as a Biff would, and move through it with Biff-nature. He will prefer chicken wings to Caesar salad, Tammys to Juliets, golf to tennis and poli sci to sociology, if that’s what Biffs usually do.

Lyman? If his name is Lyman he’s going to have to be the spokesperson for Sprite. “What, your parents couldn’t choose between lime or lemon?”