61 Quotes About Naming

Most of us have nicknames—annoying, endearing, embarrassing.But what about your true name?It is not necessarily your given name. But it is the one to which you are most eager to respond when called.Ever wonder why?Your true name has the secret power to call you.

I like that, well before T.S. Eliot expressed himself on the matter, Samuel Butler stated that the severest test of the imagination was naming a cat.

There is a Quichua riddle: El que me nombra, me rompe. Whatever names me, breaks me. The solution, your course, is "silence." But the truth is, anyone who knows your name can break you in two.

You were naming my life, which is similar but not identical to saving.We name something to make it real, to give it meaning. You can name my life and I might still die. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.

New Rule: Don't name your kid after a ballpark. Cubs fans Paul and Teri Fields have named their newborn son Wrigley. Wrigley Fields. A child is supposed to be an independent individual, not a means of touting your own personal hobbies. At least that's what I've always taught my kids, Panama Red and Jacuzzi.

I didn’t even have a name for her, shade or human, but I didn’t need one to know her. (Eric)

[W]hen my little girl was born, I put my finger in her tiny hand, and she opened her eyes and squeezed it so tightly. And I looked at her, and I realized that she was more powerful than any delicate princess I'd read about. I'd just given birth to a queen. A girl who would grow up to be strong and brave. So I called her Queenie.

People want to be the ones drawing the lines, building the boxes, making the names. Maybe because stories live inside all those structures, and if you're the one controlling the stories, then you're the one in power. So they get really angry when you name yourself, especially if you're the type of thing they were expecting to name.

...a name is almost always a sort of cowardice---an attempt to confine a thing to being only what it is, rather than what it may be.