The Name Game

Genesis 2:19 & 20 a; " And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field. "

This topic struck me as I was observing our Little J sitting on the sofa, feeling his toes and saying quietly to himself every name he knows how to say over and over... " Toe, MyMy, Dada, Mama, Tinsel, Tater, Toe, MyMy, Dada, Mama, Tinsel, Tater ...." ( Toe and MyMy are his brother and sister. ) It just made him happy to verbalize the names and it hit me that we humans LOVE to name things. Just think of the excitement when you find out you're going to have a new baby and head to the library to pick up the latest Baby Name book, choose the most fitting meaning, which family member's name to pass on to your little one, what name you want to yell when that child is in BIG, BIG trouble!

We get some sort of pleasure out of giving something a name. Almost like a power. Like " I've named you this and you will be known by this name for the rest of your life." Our oldest son CT was bent on naming everything he had 'Chip or Sitka' which were the names of our aunt's horses. He took great pride in getting something and then granting it the same name as his horsey obsessions Chip and Sitka. MN is a baby lover and just loves coming up with names for her baby dolls - the first 2 she ever owned being the infamous "Bewani '( after our niece 'Baby Alani' ) and 'Baby Takes' ( Baby Cakes. ) KN takes pride in naming pets. So does her father. He'll take forever to decide on just the right name for a new pet.

As a girl I'd make tons of paperdolls and the most fun part was coming up with a name for each one and writing on their back. Then I started raising rabbits and what joy it brought me to be able to creatively come up with bunny names after herbs, flowers species and even States. Now some celebrities are quite careless when granting their children names, but still, they have that power. Other people choose to give others their naming power, like my great grandmother who going into the delivery room thought she'd be having a boy and ended up having a girl ( my grandmother ) instead but was sharing a room with another new mother who'd thought she was having a girl and had a boy instead. The two decided to just switch the names they'd picked out for their babies, therefore, my grandmother got the name "Rhoda May" and the other lady's son got the name "Del Roy".

I guess it's sort of like God's allowance to us to let us name our children, our pets, our belongings. I mean he could have had each baby come into the world with a tag attached to their ankle with their God given name written on it. Or maybe just like Barbie, who has 'Mattel' stamped on her behind, we too could have our name permanently engraved on our behind and as the doctor pulls us from our mother's womb he could check our hiney and announce " It's a girl! Annnnddd , her name is Maggie!" ( By the way, we do know someone who thought you were assigned your name by the hospital staff when you born - he had no idea that parents choose the names. His name will remain anonymous. =)