What's your name?

“What’s in a name?  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet!” –Shakespeare

     Our identities are our life.  Who we are defines everything about how we think, who we hang out with and how we behave.  The name we are given at birth is part of that identity that we create throughout our lives, but we are often given new names along our journey through life.  For instance, most of us obtain our first nickname when we are very young, most likely about 3 or 4 years old.  We are given another name that we learn to respond to just as quickly as our real name.  Some people actually prefer to be called by their nickname instead of their real name, but does this change who the person is?  Does adopting another name really make that much of a difference in how that person acts?

     In the book Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, the heroine has multiple names that she receives from different people throughout the book.  In fact, the title “jasmine” is actually not the name she was given at birth, her first name is Jyoti; it is only after she is married that her husband gives her the name Jasmine.  She immediately accepts this name and loves it just as much as she loves the man who gave it to her, she forgets Jyoti.

     Jasmine keeps her name even after her husband dies tragically in a terrorist bombing, and even when she goes to America she is known as Jasmine.  Now, when she meets new people in the states, they all giver her nicknames such as Jazzy, Jase, and Jane, all stemming from her name Jasmine.  Instead of adopting these names as her sole name, she only is that name when she is with the person who gave it to her.  At the same time, with each name she is given, she learns to be a new person; she has a new identity with each of these names and each of these places.  She is not owned by these names, she chooses to accept them for short periods of time to please the person who gave it to her.  Deep down, she is always Jasmine.  Every new name is a new experience that she is craving.  She longs to explore and expand.

     It is the same way with most people.  We learn and grow and adopt certain different personalities that suit our mood, where we are in life and who we want to become.  Most of us do not let these new names and ways change us all the way.  Deep down most of us know who we really are, but whether we decide to show the world our true identities is a completely different story.  Jasmine wants to please, and wants to learn who to become mostly because everything is so new to her. After a lot of winding paths and detours, she finally does realize who she is and what she wants, it just took a little time to get there.