Naming Quotes

“The American Naming Authority, a collective of women studying the effects of names on behavior, decrees that a name should only have one user. The nearly 1 million American users of the name Mary, for example, do not constitute a unified army who might slaughter all users of the name Nancy, as was earlier supposed, but rather a saturation of the Mary Potential Quotient. Simply stated: Too many women with the same name produces widespread mediocrity and fatigue.”

“The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,It isn't just one of your holiday games;You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatterWhen I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -All of them sensible everyday names.There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -But all of them sensible everyday names.But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -Names that never belong to more than one cat.But above and beyond there's still one name left over,And that is the name that you never will guess;The name that no human research can discover -But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.When you notice a cat in profound meditation,The reason, I tell you, is always the same:His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplationOf the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:His ineffable effableEffanineffableDeep and inscrutable singular Name.”

“But above and beyond there's still one name left over,And that is the name that you never will guess;The name that no human research can discover--But the cat himself knows, and will never confess.When you notice a cat in profound meditation,The reason, I tell you, is always the same:His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplationOf the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:His ineffable effableEffanineffableDeep and inscrutable singular Name.”

“The method that is required is not one of correlation but of liberation. Even the term “method” must be reinterpreted and in fact wrenched out of its usual semantic field, for the emerging creativity in women is by no means a merely cerebral process. In order to understand the implications of this process it is necessary to grasp the fundamental fact that women have had the power of naming stolen from us. We have not been free to use our power to name ourselves, the world or God. The old naming was not the product of dialogue- a fact inadvertently admitted in the genesis story of Adam’s naming the animals and the women. Women are now realizing that the universal imposing of names by men has been false because partial. That is, inadequate words have been taken as adequate.”

“But hereto is replied that the poets give names to men they write of, which argueth a conceit of an actual truth, and so, not being true, proveth a falsehood. And doth the lawyer lie then, when, under the names of John of the Stile, and John of the Nokes, he putteth his case? But that is easily answered: their naming of men is but to make their picture the more lively, and not to build any history. Painting men, they cannot leave men nameless. We see we cannot play at chess but that we must give names to our chess-men; and yet, me thinks, he were a very partial champion of truth that would say we lied for giving a piece of wood the reverend title of a bishop.”

“NAMING THE EARTH(a poem of light for national poetry day)And the world will be born againin circles of steaming breathand beams of lightas each one of us directsour inner eyeupon its name.Hear the cry of wings,the sigh of leaves and grass,smell the new sweet mist risingas the pathway is cleared at last.Stones stand ready -they have knownsince ages and ages agothat they were not alone.Water carries the planet's energyinto skies and down to earth and bones.The cold parts steadily as we come together,bodies and hearts warm,hands tingling.We are silentbut our eyes are singing.We look, we feel, we know,we trust each other's souls,we have no need to speak.Not now, but later,when the time is right,the name will ringwithin the iron coreof each other's listening -and the very earth's being.Every creature, every plant,will hear it calling,tolling like a bell -a sound we've always feltbut never dared to hopeto hear reverberating -true at last, at every levelof existence.The poets come togetherto open the intimate centre.Believein life and air -breathe the light itself,for these are the energiesand rhythms that we needto see, to touch, to reach,to identify, to say, the NAME.Colours on your skinfuse and dissolve -leave the river cleanfor pure space and timeto enter and flow in.We all become one fluid streamof stillness and motion,of flaring thoughtpulses discoveringweird pools and twists withinwhere darkness hidesfrom the flames in our eyesbut will not snare us.We probe deeper still,journeying towards a unitywhich will be more rawand yet also more formedthan anything writtenor spoken before.Our fragile bodiesfall away -and the trees, and the roots of trees,guide us -lead us awayfrom the faces we rememberseeing each day in the mirror -into an oceanof dreamsseething with warmth,love,where the beginningis real,ripe, evolving.And the world is born againin circles of steaming breathand beams of light.An ache - a signal -a trembling moment -and the time is rightto say the name.We sing as one wholevoice of the universal -all the words, the namesof every tiny thirsting thing,and they ring out togetheras one sound,one energy, one sense,one vibration, one breath.And the world listens,beats, shines, glows -IS -Exists!”

“Stories, no matter how simple, can be vehicles of truth; can be, in fact, icons. It's no coincidence that Jesus taught almost entirely by telling stories, simple stories dealing with the stuff of life familiar to the Jews of his day. Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.”

“If you can't see past my name, you can't see me.”

“The most ironic thing in the world is having no say when your name is determined for the first time (which is also for the last time for most), because newborns are not necessarily known for speaking their minds.”