Known by Name

Names have been a predominant topic of conversation around here for the past several months, thanks to pregnancy. As soon as my husband and I knew that we were expecting a baby, of course we started narrowing down our list of favorite names (which we had already been compiling for some time, because we are planners like that). When we learned we were expecting a girl, then our name decision became solidified. This process of naming seemed to gain more and more gravity with each step. Dreaming of future baby names, narrowing down the list to our most favorite names, then "officially" naming our little daughter and starting to call her by her own name even though she hasn't arrived yet: in each phase, the importance of a name became more apparent to me. It's fun to imagine names when there isn't anyone really being affected, but then as soon as a living person enters the picture and is going to be identified by the result of our decision, the name seems pretty serious! Are we sure it's right?

I'm not second-guessing our choice (which we are keeping secret until our little girl arrives - shh!), but I am struck by the observation that a name can carry so much weight. I don't know if it's even the name itself that brings this weightiness (the meaning of the name, etc.). Instead, I think it's the simple fact of being named. To speak of and to our little girl by name has created a new and closer bond between not only us and our baby, but between my husband and me as well. We alone and together share this knowledge of her; to know a name is to know, in a sense.

This knowing goes the other way, too: to hear my own name spoken by friends, family, my husband, brings a kind of delight. I hope it's not a self-centered pleasure, and I don't think it is. I think it's just the pleasure that comes with the feeling of being known. My husband has a few nicknames and pet names for me, which are all special because they tell me he knows me in a way that's particular to him alone. Also, when he speaks my name I feel like he's speaking me, and I feel like I belong with him.

These thoughts about names have been percolating partly in response to a section in Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (which I'm still reading):

My rightful first name is Jonah, but I had not gone by that name since I was ten years old. I had been called simply J., and that was the way I signed myself. Once my customers took me to themselves, they called my Jaybird, and then Jayber. Thus I became, and have remained, a possession of Port William.

The fact that the members of Jayber's town give him a special name indicates their knowledge and acceptance of him as a part of their lives. He also feels connected and welcomed because of this naming. He knows he belongs in the town, that the town has truly become home.

On a similar note, Jesus prayed to the Father and said, "O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which you loved Me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:25-26). We can know God's name: we can know God through Jesus, His Son! God also knows His children and even gives them special names, according to Revelation 2:17. Naming a whole new person who's coming into the world is a small picture of this naming by God, and for that I am thankful. It helps me understand in a new way that to be known by God and to be given a particular name by Him will indicate a true belonging, a true being at home with Him. What joy!