Names Really Can Make a Difference

Names are very important. Psychologists tell us that the name we love to hear the most is our own. After that, it’s the name of the person we love the dearest.

But sometimes, names are overrated, fickle things. How many times have you heard: “Fool’s names, like fool’s faces, are often seen in public places.” Shakespeare also said, in “Romeo and Juliet,” “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.”

And the obsession with names is not peculiar to humans. As C.S. Lewis said in “The Naming of Cats”: When you notice a cat in profound meditation, the reason, I tell you is always the same: his mind is engaged in rapt contemplation of the thought, of the thought of his name, his ineffable, deep and inscrutable Name.”