What’s in a name?

So one of my nieces (3 yrs old) recently got 2 guinea pigs. All very exciting but of course they needed names. I honestly couldn’t even guess as to how to spell what she came up with!... kids are great! Their ability to make up words and be so matter of fact about their own little realities is very cute. I think the nearest I could describe to what she initially suggested is ‘hack saw’ and ‘pork chop’ ... yep I know, great names for the unsuspecting guinea pigs! We’re all just hoping that hack saw doesn’t get any ideas into his head about pork chop 🤦‍♀️

So what is in a name? I remember really deliberating over the names for my children. No matter that you have 9 months to come up with some, it’s still a really hard and a very big deal. It seems to carry with it the weight of perceived identity, character, personality, acceptance and much more, in light of the societal trends and expectations of the time. Also, what we as the parent hope for the child ... we put our values, traditions, concerns (nicknames), family expectations and such like into the mix.

Different cultures base name choosing on different values. I remember being in a remote mission hospital in South Africa up in the hills where mostly people from the Zulu tribe lived. I helped out in surgery on the odd occasion and learnt that often mother’s would chose the first word they heard after the baby was born, to call it by... so there was a baby called Anesthetic for example. Cute.  My favorite was a little girl I met in Zambia called marmalade... absolutely love that and yet didn’t consider it when my own daughter was born (with hindsight, very lacking of me!)

We often associate a name with a memory of someone, maybe a lovely person who evokes a warmth within us on hearing their name; or maybe we recoil at the sound of a name because of a very negative association. Yet it’s just a name, a word in fact. It’s what’s behind the name that counts.

Let us live so that our lives are what will be remembered and that those memories to others will lead them to the one name which matters, the only name which will last throughout eternity, the name of Jesus.

Please listen to this song by Casting Crowns called ‘Only Jesus’.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=VXIBP2BdYR8&feature=share

Philippians 2v10 “that at the name of JESUS every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth”.

One day, every single soul every lived will know and acknowledge His name. Let’s be a light to shine into others around us the beauty of Jesus.

Ingrid x