NYASHADZAISHE RUSHWAYA
A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
The sound of someone using your name typically cuts through all other noise that might be going on around you. Since birth, you have been conditioned to respond to the sound of your name.
Our names are an incredibly important part of our identity. They carry deep personal, cultural, familial, and historical connections. They also give us a sense of who we are, the communities in which we belong, and our place in the world. This is why mispronunciations, misuse of our preferred/ common names, or misgendering can negatively affect and possibly hurt and impact a sense of belonging
The first piece of information strangers learn about most people is the name picked for them by their parents. but what you are called can have a surprising impact on how others perceive us
You might have dwelt on the different ways that your parents shaped you from their warmth and strictness to their generosity and pushiness. But perhaps you haven’t thought so much about the consequences of one particularly important gift they bestowed upon you your name and whether you like it, and how wider society views it.
Parents often agonize over what to call their children. It can feel like a test of creativity or a way to express their own personalities or identities through their offspring. But what many parents might not fully realize – I know I certainly didn’t – is that the choice they make over their children’s names could play a part in shaping how others see their child and therefore ultimately the kind of person their child becomes.
For most of us, we are stuck with the names that are chosen for us at birth until we become old enough to change them for ourselves. This is why I think Archbishop Ezekiel Guti had to change his name from Handinawangu to Ezekiel, because a name is used to identify an individual and communicate with the individual on a daily basis, it serves as the very basis of one’s self-conception, especially in relation to others.
Of course, many factors sculpt our personalities. Some of it is influenced by our genes. Formative experiences play a huge role, so too the people we hang out with, and ultimately the roles we take on in life, whether at work or in the family. Amidst all these dynamics, it’s easy to forget the part played by our names – a highly personal influence imposed on us from birth and that usually stays with us through life (unless we go to the trouble of changing it). the most important anchorage to our self-identity throughout life remains our own name.
At a basic level, our names can reveal details about our ethnicity or other aspects of our background, which in a world of social bias carries inevitable consequences less likely to attract interviews when attributed to a person with a Shona sounding name
These consequences should not be taken lightly, but that’s not where the influence of names ends. Even within a single culture, names can be common or rare, they can have certain positive or negative connotations in terms of their meaning, and they can be seen as appealing or unfashionable and disliked .those views can change over time with fashions too. In turn, these features of our names inevitably affect how others treat us and how we feel about ourselves.
If you’re a prospective parent, you might be wondering whether to plump for a common, popular name, perhaps enhancing your children’s popularity and likeability in the process, or whether to give them an original name, helping them to feel special and act more creatively remember not to burden your child to bless them.
