what's in a name
in 2014, in the second year of my social anthropology degree, i remember reading bourdieu’s theory on the act of naming. according to him, naming isn’t a neutral process that solely aims to describe a reality, but a political one, that ends up constructing reality itself. he mentions the inherent power name providers hold, and the symbolic violence the act of naming can hold. i think of how many social groups have been named without their consent - immigrants, addicts, whores - and the connotations that those names create. and, whilst we’re seeing a resurgence of radical reclamation of names across social groups, those connotations also keep on existing, and holding impact. bourdieu’s theory is taken much further in the book ‘an anthropology of names and naming’, co-edited by one of my lecturers,, and looked at in varying different contexts; what stands out is a reiteration of how deeply un-neutral a name is, and how much power it holds in shaping our identities, social and cultural lives - something exemplified by personal names being found in societies universally, and for those personal names most of the time having to be attributed in the first months of a baby’s life.
for the last half decade, i have been primarily referred to by a name i chose myself: june.
when i started exploring a new gender identity at the start of the 2020s, june was a natural progression from jon, phonetically close enough for people to easily adapt, feminine enough for people to no longer assume me a man, incidentally also somewhat asian enough for people to always think me ethnic (sigh). as bourdieu mentions, naming myself june wasn’t just descriptive of my reality, but actually somewhat created it, a new reality where my identity was much more ambiguous. all of a sudden, i started noticing people struggling to understand my name in introductions, repeating it back as ‘drew’, ‘dune’ and sometimes in an asiafied tone: ‘joon’. i had people have outrageous reactions to finding out my birthday is in july, ‘what was your parents’ thought process?’, i’ve been often asked in different iterations, ‘i named myself’ i reply sometimes, just giggle without a response other times. when interrogated on the origin of the name, i mention a nebulous past non-binary phase, after which june had stuck.
that latter sentence is somewhat untrue; i only started adopting june at a time where i was seeking a more binary transgender identity. that (gender) exploration ended up feeling incongruous. and lately i’ve been left wondering what the significance of still going by june is, when the identity i was aspiring to when i adopted it, ended up not being the one i wanted, the reality i was looking to create by naming myself this, not the one i ended up wanting to live in. i wonder whether this name holds me back, whether i now hold onto it more for convenience than authenticity.
i like the fact i named myself. i like any actions where humans exercise their will power against societal rules that are sold to us as unquestionable, e.g. our ability to change our name, at any point of our life, for whatever reason. in a society where we are so often stripped away from agency, naming ourselves can feel like a radical reclamation of our power, a reminder we always can get a say on the reality we construct. i love when i meet people who’ve changed their last name in an act of rebellion against their shit dad, or the creative names sex workers come up with for protection but also glamour, or any of my friends who choose to strongly hold onto their nickname of choice. i will forever stand for self determination against state determination.
and yet, whilst june still feels very fitting in my friendships, i am choosing to go back to jon for my writing (career?); so unequivocable in its boyhood and its westerness it used to make me shiver, today, it sparks alignment. because just as much as there’s power in choosing our name, there’s power in recognising the worth in being named. jon is not just a masculine and western name - it’s the one my mum, my favourite person in the world, gifted me. i want my first book (coming out feb 26th!) to hold the name she chose for me, and the one i chose to reclaim for myself. i wonder if the book after might hold another name again.
💖