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Help[Opinions] Quiddity
in reply to a message by Norah Namenerd
When you honor someone by giving someone else their name, your love for them must be fierce enough to envelop their name also. As you think the bump in your husband's nose, which you initially considered awkward and wished away, the most beautiful feature any face could have, because it is his nose on his face. Because you are you, because it is it, that is love. The Thing In Itself. It-ness of it. Quiddity.
Donald is Donald, the thing in itself, beginning with its own quaint and dated syllable, tumbling over the hill of the n, rumpling into the nd at its base. It is everything it is, ancient, Scottish, both craggy and cushy at once. It is The Thing In Itself, its proclaims its donaldicity to the listening hills, birth certificates, gravestones, driver's licenses, report cards, signatures. It is nothing but itself.
If you go to honor someone using their name, it must be because your love for their name has overflowed from your love of the person. The person's quiddity. You must fiercely love the quiddity of Donald or to use it means nothing, and to use it in some horrible modern compromise-bastardization means absolutely nothing at all. Brydon takes everything which is Donaldic about Donald and washes it away. It is like Heidi Montag's plastic surgery. Worse, even. It's like on sims where you have randomized to come up with a cool face with a wonky nose and big lips and skinny eyebrows, and then click on the first default face and watch it spring and wobble back to a completely inoffensive, anonymous shape. And you call it the same Sim because it's wearing the same clothes as before. Brydon is nothing, it does not exist, it is like an empty chip bag. It is a name, a non-name, borne out of two compromises - three if you count the one to the stupid whims of modern fashion. It is like staying at home and doing nothing. It is like not using a middle name at all.
One must have courage. Brydon is not Donald. It is not Bryon. It is not honoring at all. It has made honoring a slave to the parents aesthetic preferences, which is not honoring at all. Have you ever had something published and, when you read it, found that it had been edited without your authorization to take out all of the interesting parts, all of your stylistic quirks, all of the quiddity of your work, but kept your name on it? That is Brydon.
If your fierce love of the person does not overcome your fierce attachment to aesthetics, that is a totally legit sentiment. But then, you should not honor at all. You know silly putty? I feel like if everything in the world were compromised it would all look like silly putty. Brydon is silly putty. Have I made it clear that I do not approve of Brydon.
I went through a similar thing myself. My granddad's name is Larry Stephen "Steve." Two names I did not like at all. I thought for a long time that Laurentius was honoring him. Ha ha ha. no! The Thing In Itself. So I grew to love Stephen, not as a compromise, but on its own terms, its quiddity, the ph, the st, the long e, everything it is. Similar thing with Ludwig for Beethoven. Etc.
...I do cut this concept a little leeway on different translations of the same name. To me Maria/Mary/Marie are the same name. So I could see using one of the more celtic forms of Donald, maybe. But Donald would be best.
Donald is Donald, the thing in itself, beginning with its own quaint and dated syllable, tumbling over the hill of the n, rumpling into the nd at its base. It is everything it is, ancient, Scottish, both craggy and cushy at once. It is The Thing In Itself, its proclaims its donaldicity to the listening hills, birth certificates, gravestones, driver's licenses, report cards, signatures. It is nothing but itself.
If you go to honor someone using their name, it must be because your love for their name has overflowed from your love of the person. The person's quiddity. You must fiercely love the quiddity of Donald or to use it means nothing, and to use it in some horrible modern compromise-bastardization means absolutely nothing at all. Brydon takes everything which is Donaldic about Donald and washes it away. It is like Heidi Montag's plastic surgery. Worse, even. It's like on sims where you have randomized to come up with a cool face with a wonky nose and big lips and skinny eyebrows, and then click on the first default face and watch it spring and wobble back to a completely inoffensive, anonymous shape. And you call it the same Sim because it's wearing the same clothes as before. Brydon is nothing, it does not exist, it is like an empty chip bag. It is a name, a non-name, borne out of two compromises - three if you count the one to the stupid whims of modern fashion. It is like staying at home and doing nothing. It is like not using a middle name at all.
One must have courage. Brydon is not Donald. It is not Bryon. It is not honoring at all. It has made honoring a slave to the parents aesthetic preferences, which is not honoring at all. Have you ever had something published and, when you read it, found that it had been edited without your authorization to take out all of the interesting parts, all of your stylistic quirks, all of the quiddity of your work, but kept your name on it? That is Brydon.
If your fierce love of the person does not overcome your fierce attachment to aesthetics, that is a totally legit sentiment. But then, you should not honor at all. You know silly putty? I feel like if everything in the world were compromised it would all look like silly putty. Brydon is silly putty. Have I made it clear that I do not approve of Brydon.
I went through a similar thing myself. My granddad's name is Larry Stephen "Steve." Two names I did not like at all. I thought for a long time that Laurentius was honoring him. Ha ha ha. no! The Thing In Itself. So I grew to love Stephen, not as a compromise, but on its own terms, its quiddity, the ph, the st, the long e, everything it is. Similar thing with Ludwig for Beethoven. Etc.
...I do cut this concept a little leeway on different translations of the same name. To me Maria/Mary/Marie are the same name. So I could see using one of the more celtic forms of Donald, maybe. But Donald would be best.
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Replies
Awesome.
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Brilliant. I've always hated the concept of "honoring" without using the name itself, but I was never able to express it the way that you did, nor even come close. May I copy and paste this every time someone makes an "I want to honor but I hate the name" post?
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What if the person you wish to honour
hates/hated his/her own name though? Then what? Would you find out what the person would have rather been called and use that?
hates/hated his/her own name though? Then what? Would you find out what the person would have rather been called and use that?
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That might be an interesting approach to it.
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My mom wanted to name my sister Adele after my grandmother Adele, but she hated her name so much she protested loudly against the notion. So instead she got Anna, after an Ann, who remained chuffed her whole life that her great granddaughter had gotten her name. *shrug*
I dunno what I would do. It would depend on a lot of factors I don't have privy to right now.
I dunno what I would do. It would depend on a lot of factors I don't have privy to right now.
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Ah, well, I have experience of this. Which I have stated here before. I think more than once. But I don't remind repeating it. Which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.
My mom's name was Zoe and she hated her name with a passion. I was very well aware of the fact that she hated her name, but nonetheless I gave my daughter the middle name of Zoe, without consulting my mother. My mother was very pleased by this, and I can still remember the tears coming into her eyes at my daughter's christening when the minister said the name, "Victoria Zoe."
I've read posts in which it's stated, "But I don't think my grandma would have wanted me to use her name because she hated it." So I point out to the poster that, due to my own experience, I know that it is not a given that a person who hates his or her own name would object to its use for honoring purposes.
No, I wouldn't find out what the person would rather have been called and use that. I assume my mother loved the girls' names she used, which were Linda, Janice, Patricia, and Pamela, and would most likely rather have been called one of those than Zoe. But I wouldn't use any of those, of course...that would be honoring my sisters or myself rather than my mom. Not something I'd do in any case, anyway.
You know, I'm stubborn enough anyway, that I know if my mother *had* told me not use her name because she hated it, I would have done it anyway. I'd had it planned since I was fourteen years old, and she wasn't going to talk me out of it.
My mom's name was Zoe and she hated her name with a passion. I was very well aware of the fact that she hated her name, but nonetheless I gave my daughter the middle name of Zoe, without consulting my mother. My mother was very pleased by this, and I can still remember the tears coming into her eyes at my daughter's christening when the minister said the name, "Victoria Zoe."
I've read posts in which it's stated, "But I don't think my grandma would have wanted me to use her name because she hated it." So I point out to the poster that, due to my own experience, I know that it is not a given that a person who hates his or her own name would object to its use for honoring purposes.
No, I wouldn't find out what the person would rather have been called and use that. I assume my mother loved the girls' names she used, which were Linda, Janice, Patricia, and Pamela, and would most likely rather have been called one of those than Zoe. But I wouldn't use any of those, of course...that would be honoring my sisters or myself rather than my mom. Not something I'd do in any case, anyway.
You know, I'm stubborn enough anyway, that I know if my mother *had* told me not use her name because she hated it, I would have done it anyway. I'd had it planned since I was fourteen years old, and she wasn't going to talk me out of it.
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Hell yeeaaahhhh
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Yup! That's why I don't care what people say about Barbara:-) I love it because I loved the person whose name it was and I'm going to use it (I have grown to like the name itself now, but I never even gave it a though when I decided this back when I was 10). I even don't care if she gets called Bara or Barica (which are extremely dated and dowdy here) because that's what my grandma was called.
And also why I'm now set on Ana-Sofia for a second daughter. I was trying to get around using Ana (the other grandmother, but it was VERY popular in my generation and it was a constant classic) with Anika or Anja, etc., but her name was Ana so I think I'll keep it as is (she can use the others as a nickname if she wants one day).
And also why I'm now set on Ana-Sofia for a second daughter. I was trying to get around using Ana (the other grandmother, but it was VERY popular in my generation and it was a constant classic) with Anika or Anja, etc., but her name was Ana so I think I'll keep it as is (she can use the others as a nickname if she wants one day).
This message was edited 9/10/2010, 6:32 AM
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I want to marry you and have babies.
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This is a truly wonderful message, which should appear in neon lights outside - no, dammit, inside! - every maternity ward on the planet. Thank you!
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