What's in a Name?

 My brother and sister-in-law are having a baby in August and just found out they are having a boy. Now, they are going through the difficult process of finding a name. They have proceeded to make a list but have yet to make a decision. Thinking about names and reading Jasmine has caused me to wonder, "what's in a name"?

My full name is Abigail Kristin Tingey. "Abigail" not only because my dad likes the name but also for the Bible story about Abigail. "Kristin" is after my Aunt Kris, my dad's sister, who died of leukemia a year before I was born. "Tingey" is my family name, the name I share with my ancestors. I also have many nicknames. Abbycakes, Abby and Abs being among them. My dad has been calling me Abbycakes since I can remember. My close friends call me Abs. And I have been called Abby all my life by everyone I have met.

In Jasmine, Jyoti has many names that are influenced by where she is, who she is with and the situation that she is in. Jasmine says, "I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmine, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-Face for Kali,"(Mukherjee, 197). Jyoti was the name she was given by her parents in India. Prakash wanted Jyoti to have a more American name that would be the beginning of her new life; he chose Jasmine. When she first landed in America, she was taken and forced by Half-Face and she called herself Kali after killing him. Kali means "the black one" and is associated with death and empowerment. In New York, she lives with Taylor and Duff, and Taylor calls her Jase as a nickname. And Bud calls her Jane.

Each new name she received represents each new "self" she became. She admits to the difficulty in having so many different "selves" when she says, "Jyoti, Jasmine: I shuttled between identities"(Mukherjee, 77). She describes each of her "selves" based on her different names as this: "Jyoti was now a sati-goddess; she had burned herself in a trash-can-funeral pyre behind a boarded-up motel in Florida. Jasmine lived for the future, for Vijh & Wife. Jase went to movies and lived for today"(Mukherjee, 176). She continues with her own comparison of two of her "selves". She says, "for every Jasmine the reliable caregiver, there is a Jase the prowling adventurer"(Mukherjee, 176). She makes yet another comparison when she says, "my grandmother may have named my Jyoti, Light, but in surviving I was already Jane, a fighter and adapter"(Mukherjee, 40).

With every name, she was a different person. I think that may be true with everyone. Friends and family often have different names for you and you are a different person with your friends than you are with your family. It is just interesting that in Jasmine's case, she didn't have any choice in her name change. But do we? The question is, how much do we dictate how we change? I think our names, or at least who gives us our names, dictates change a lot more than we think.