The power of a name
By Jessica Brodie
I straddle Generation X and Gen Y, and I think my age group was the very last that did not have widespread cell phone use in our younger years. I did my homework with pencil and paper, we used textbooks at school, and when I started writing stories, I used a typewriter. We finally got a computer at home when I was a senior in high school, and it was MS DOS and very low-tech. I was out of college and working when I got my first cell phone.
And for me, one of the best things about being a kid was exactly that—I wasn’t tethered to a device like I am today, or like my kids seem to be.
One of the highlights of my childhood was Saturday nights at my grandma’s when my sister, cousin, and I would have our weekly sleepover. We were all really creative kids—probably because we had to make up our own games for fun, and my Gram only had an old beat-up black-and-white TV in the play room with awful reception—so guess what we did?
We PLAYED! We made up games. We played “poor sisters living in a shack in the forest.” We played detectives. We played librarian and school. We started our own rock band with Gram’s hairbrushes as microphones. Without fail, whenever we went to the neighborhood pool, we played mermaids.
And for every one of those games, we got to invent special names. Cassandra. Alexandria. Veronica. Zoendria. Those names, in my mind, dictated my personality. They were like a hat I got to put on, showcasing my spirit, how I’d react to things, how I handled adversity.
When I played “poor sisters in the woods” and I was Cassandra, I didn’t flee when the robbers or the bears invaded. I stood strong and defended my home, barring the doors and protecting my people. I didn’t shy away from digging in the dirt on my hands and knees to plant our garden or forage for berries. “Cassandra” was fierce and bold. That was the hat I wore, the character I assumed, the cloak I wrapped around my shoulders.
I had a couple of real-life invented names along the way, too. I tried to get everyone to call me JJ when I was seven, because I thought that was a cool, tough, tomboy-ish name. And when I was 13 or 14, I started telling people my name was Jessa. Neither caught on, no matter how hard I tried. Years later, when my daughter, Avery, was little, she insisted her “real” name was Stella.
There can be tremendous power in a name.
Surveys have shown if your name is Gary, people assume you play baseball and have a bunch of male friends. If your name is Sharon, people assume you work in an office, probably in human relations. If you’re named Emily or Sarah, people probably consider you to be humble and kind. And of course, take a look at any baby-name book and it will tell you what your name is supposed to mean, its ethnic origin, and more.
A friend, who adopted a teen girl a couple of years ago, said her daughter chose to change her first, middle, and last name as an adult as a way of discarding the baggage of her past and staking claim in her new life of love.
It reminds me so much of the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, when he told them, “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:16-19 NIV).
I love that: The old is gone, the new is here.
When this girl was adopted, her whole life changed. Once trapped in a difficult and dark family situation, now she has unconditional love and hope. Naturally, she’d want to leave the past behind and seize her new life with both hands held tight.
It’s the same thing when we become a Christian—our sin is gone. We’re made new, wiped clean, because of the blood Christ shed for every one of us on the cross. Indeed, we are “born again.” Our lives are completely restructured, and so many key things about us are altered: our thinking, feeling, behavior, perspective, even our will.
When I was little and changed my name during our make-believe games, that’s what I was doing. For a little while, I didn’t have to be “boring, regular” me anymore. I didn’t have to be the shy bookworm who hid behind her mom or stowed my asthma inhaler deep in my backpack so no one would find out I was different. With my new name, I could be strong and mighty, a real leader.
Today, I’m happy to be called Jessica. I’ve owned who I am—good stuff and the not so good—but I know deep down I have a real, true name, and that’s Precious Daughter of the Risen King.
There is much power in that name. It’s my core identity, the most important part of who I am, and it’s the part of me that will last forever.
When you believe in Jesus, you get your special name, too, your identity in Christ. We all do.
If you are struggling today, or having a ho-hum week, take comfort that your name means something mighty, loving, and beautiful to the Lord. You belong to Him.
And there is immense, holy power in that true, righteous, eternal identity.