The cats have been fed to keep them at bay while I sit here in pajamas and robe to write this before it fades away into the day’s life.
I have told Nancy from time to time that writers sometimes must write when the muse demands no matter when it is.
A friend (I’m sure it was a friend although I recall no face, just a voice) in that in-between time this morning asked me a question and I am motivated to answer it here.
“I want to name my son Jesus,” he said. “What do you think?”
He pronounced it with the “J.”
I answered, “Sure, go ahead. But think about pronouncing it “Hay-soos.”
And a few seconds later, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to give him the middle name of Nguyen?”
I am fascinated by names and what they say about our national culture. As I was talking to myself, or maybe with my dream friend, I began to wonder how many babies might be born to White families like mine (where the children have good white names such as Robert and Elizabeth) in Minneapolis this year with first names such as Abdi, Bashir, Dahir, or Wasame—-popular Somali surnames meaning, in order, servant or worshiper, bringer of good news, light or sun, and glad tidings.
It is not uncommon for names to be tied to events or to challenging times that highlight parts of our cultural stew.
(I prefer “stew” to a reference to our cultural soup that suggests we all blend together into a single entity. Stews are made of different elements that retrain their identities —carrots, potatoes, meat, and sometimes little bitty onions and peas—to provide a tasty flavor.)
Jesus Nguyen Jones. Lara Solis Smith (Mexican surnames for a place of laurel trees and sunny).
Names of African-Americans such as James Washington that stem from the slave era, are giving way to some wonderful and fascinating new names—-just look at the wide variety of names on the back of some sports uniforms for examples.
I am waiting for the first white athlete named Jamar.
What is happening seems to this observer to be a quiet but growing form of new cultural recognition that in time will create a nutritious national stew. The elements are becoming more self-identified. But with time, we will see the Jesus Nguyens and the Lara Solises, and the Robert Jamals and Elizabeth Githinjis (Kenyan for “one who is blessed or fortunate”).
A century from now, the face and faces of America are most likely to be much different from today’s American culture and, we hope, the irrational fears of “others” will be relegated to history. We do not fear that time for it speaks of a recognition that all are children of a creator known by different names in different places within a single world.
(Picture Credit: The Golden Rule, Norman Rockwell Museum)