The Dichotomies of a Name

Who am I? A name with a surname. For most of the world that’s what I am. A name followed by my surname. But I think in me, and in my name itself are two individuals hidden. Two personalities. And this I believe is true for most of us. Lets examine the whole scenario.

My name, as generally all names do, consists of two parts. The first part is a name given to me while the second part is a family name I’ve inherited. As kids and as we grow up we are often exhorted by elders around us to tell people our complete names when we introduce ourselves to them. So, as I was growing up, I was never just my name but my name with surname. The full name gave a sense of pride as often it helped me to convey to which family I belong to, an identity dear to me.

But somewhere along the way something happened that I believe happens with a lot of us as we make the journey from our childhood to adulthood. My first name started becoming more mine than my surname, irrespective of my dislike for how it sounded. And as I walked further on that road of time with age, I discovered two people in my one name. Here, I’m trying to separate those two.

There is one person in my name and there is another person in my name with the surname. My name has in it a person who is independent of the surname and hence an independent entity in itself. It has its own aspirations and dreams. Wild dreams, so wild that one would easily dismiss them as daydreams. It is one’s true self with its own set of unchained thoughts, free as a bird in the sky. To spoil this piece with a political term, this self contained in the first name is the unencumbered self. The name just doesn’t have dreams, it has immense faith and belief too. 

And then there is the other individual in you, the one that you introduce to the world every time you utter your full name. With that surname added now to the name, this you is a different you. The surname somewhere defines the limits of your dreams and aspirations. It’s a reminder to you of the world you belong to, a world not of unfettered freedoms but one of responsibilities and duties. Its no more the unencumbered self and you’re no more the free floating and day dreaming entity but someone embedded in networks of social relations and hierarchies. Yet, it is not that self the the person hidden in your name wishes to be. It’s the false you in the real world. The full name is like the body with clothes on. It is more for the world than it is about us. The names, however, are more pristine for us, closer to us.

The relationships that we share with our first names are therefore more personal than the one we share with our full names. Yet, in a tragic sense, we are all caught in a world where we often can’t make those two separate individuals one or free the first name from the burden of the surname. And, maybe, as we grow up, we once again end up becoming our full names, closer to the world outside, but far far away from who we actually are.