What’s In A Name? A Lot It Seems

Juliet: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet.” – Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Scene II

When you have a name like Juliet, you can speak but for the rest of us, we have to make do with what our parents have named us. It is a part of our identity.

If you have an easy to pronounce name, like say Ramesh in India or John in the west, great. An easy on the tongue, cross-culture name is even better. A name that can be abbreviated to something short and sweet like a Sid for Sidharth, is ultimate, as it ticks all the boxes both in India and across the world.

But what if you have a name like “X Æ A-Xii”? That, as you may know, is the name of Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla & SpaceX and his musician partner Grimes’ newborn son. Originally named “X Æ A-12”, the name was deemed illegal under Californian law, because it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet and was then changed to “X Æ A-Xii”.

They may both be famous in their own rights, but they have definitely ensured their son is even more so, just by giving him a Promethean name.

The world is going crazy, trying to figure out how to pronounce it. If their own tweets and subsequent news reports are to be believed, the parents themselves disagree over it too.

Despite the avant-garde name, he may not be in the minority with regard to difficulty in nomenclature pronunciation. I recently met a girl named “Áine” from Ireland and was struggling to pronounce it, until she helpfully said its “Anya”. As with many other Irish names like Aoife (EE-fe/Eva) or Siobhan (shi-VAWN), the spelling and pronunciation differ. Unless you are told or you have Googled, it’s hard to know the correct way. This goes for names in other cultures too, like a J in Spanish is actually pronounced as H, so a Jose is actually called “Hose”. However, these are all cultural aspects, a onetime problem and not actually a personal choice.

There are also names that sound funny. Comedian Amy Schumer and her chef husband Chris Fischer changed their son’s middle name from Gene Attell Fischer to Gene David Fischer after a year. They realised Gene Attell can rhyme with “Genital” and they did not want him to be bullied for it. Well, some kids are not so lucky and get bullied for much less, despite their parents’ best intentions.

I sat next to one Harshit (“harr-shi-tt” meaning joyful in Hindi), while on a plane to the US and he was regaling me with his naming woes. Harshit being difficult to pronounce for an average American, when he shortened it to “Harsh” people asked him why such a sweet boy was called “harsh”, as in cruel. He could not go with “Shit”, for obvious reasons. In the end people ended up calling him Harry just for the sake of convenience and, of course, his parents were not amused.

Sometimes we also think people look like their names. Actually, it’s part of the well-researched social Bouba/Kiki effect[1] published in 2001. It says, if you have a round face then people assign a soft “round” sounding name (Bouba) and if you have a sharp angular face, then people assign a sharp sounding name (Kiki).

In fact, this theory carries on further. We generally have a mild subconscious bias for people whose names match their faces. If a face shape does not conform to the name it can lead to social implications like not liking or trusting someone or can even go further as not to vote for them in an election.

It makes me wonder which category X Æ A-Xii will fall under though. Will calling someone “X Ash A 12”, and I am taking a stab at it here, negate the effect or make it more prominent?

Whether the name matches the face or they have never been bullied for it, most people like their own names. I was in the minority who hate their names and have always complained about it to parents. However, after going through these experiences, I am just relieved I can at least write my name using the 26 English alphabets and people can, mostly, pronounce it correctly.

Meanwhile the majority of parents are still trying to name kids with something that is short, sweet and easy on a multilingual tongue, unlike Elon Musk and Grimes.

Who knows, like Elon Musk and Grimes’ respective scientific and musical innovations, this may lead to a new trend in futuristic names too and result in a change in government naming rules itself. They may yet have the last laugh and only time will tell.