Sunday, March 16, 2008

Branding

For the past six months, people have been pestering me about names. As soon as they knew that we were having a girl, they wanted to know who she would be, I think. Somehow, this name would tell them.

I am not a "name" person. Just as I had no ideas about dream weddings when I got engaged, so I have no picked names, no reserved names that I have been secretly stroking since childhood. Rats.

So, here I am five weeks away (insha'allah) from delivering this sweet little girl and I still have no idea who she will be! Every once in a while, my husband and I sigh at each other and tell each other, guiltily, that we really have to pick out a name, and then we narrow down our long list of unsatisfactory names to a shorter list of unsatisfactory names, and then we give up and go to bed.

It's an impossible task. How do we pick a name that would work in both an American and an Arab context? How do I pick a name that is both Arab and Christian, or that is biblical without sounding like she belongs on a kibbutz? What about family traditions? What about our penchant for elegant Victorian names? One favorite snappy name might be to masculine, the other fave might sound too antique . . . And we all name that antique is great for furniture, but what about for a squirmy baby girl? And if it fits her, will it fit a mature woman? We finally find a handful of good names, and then realize much to our dismay, everyone else found them too and they are shooting up on the baby name charts. So, it's back to the drawing board.

I wish I could have a few practice babies to try all of this out on. Name her, let her grow up, see how it works out, then revise. I am haunted by the haughty lectures my sister and I gave my parents in which we showed them how dreadfully wrong they got it when they named us.

In college, I fantasized about the significance of naming. I mused on the sacramental act of naming, that God named us, that the act of naming is a holy act, an act of sub-creation. As I wrote, naming characters and placing, I was enthralled by this powerful gift of word. Now, I am tongue-tied, tied by my desire to not just name, but to name aright. I think of all of the people who will tell me that they hate the name that I have chosen, without saying a single word, but with a flicker of distaste across their eyes and then damning her name with mild praise. Like an eighth grade girl with a new outfit, I have pinned everything upon my grand entrance.

I run through all of the names and I ask myself, "Am I the type of person to have a little girl named -------------?" Am I trendy? Traditional? Classic? Cultural? Spiritual? Who am I? Will this name reflect me? Will I be embarressed by it later? Will it be like that dress that looks amazing on the rack, but after you bring it home and put it on, you realize that it was really meant for the tall blonde you wished you were? Will I be jealous of the friend who found the perfect name that I wasn't bright enough or creative enough to find?

Ah. Soft and gentle, late at night, I finally hear my own voice: "Who am I? Can I have a baby named . . . . " and realize why I am so tongue-tied. The question is about me: what name do I like? What name represents me? Ah, my baby is not a brand name, not an accessory. And then I realize something else: I am anointing her with my own mixed chalice of identity. My name failed to summarize me; I am trying to do that for her.

I stare at this smudged sonogram picture, and ask her, over and over, who are you? Are you delicate like the cyclamen? Misheveous like the majnooni? Will you blaze fire like the poppy? I trace the button nose that looks like my husband's, the little pointy chin that looks like my sister's. In the picture, you are curled up and asleep, but I know you to be fiesty and restless in my belly.

The word I assign you will fail to summarize you. My name does not summarize me, nor can I think of of one that would work better. All I can do is humbly wrap you up in my arms and whisper a name in your ear. And then you will grow and squirm and stretch until the name stretches enough to hold you and even then, I think, you will still be bigger than it.

1 comment:

Andrea said...

This is beautiful -- you should tuck it away to give to her someday.