names

Everything is much easier in the half-blind and half-deaf world of modern giants that seduce processions of the blind into the world of great emptiness. In their sky the stars shine and their names live in the parallel and independently of their work.

I am not warm. That is why my sister chose the name Winter for me.

I take thee at thy word:Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

Miltons were, on the whole, the most enthusiastic poet followers. A flick through the London telephone directory would yield about four thousand John Miltons, two thousand William Blakes, a thousand or so Samuel Colleridges, five hundred Percy Shelleys, the same of Wordsworth and Keats, and a handful of Drydens. Such mass name-changing could have problems in law enforcement. Following an incident in a pub where the assailant, victim, witness, landlord, arresting officer and judge had all been called Alfred Tennyson, a law had been passed compelling each namesake to carry a registration number tattooed behind the ear. It hadn't been well received--few really practical law-enforcement measures ever are.

Indeed there's a woundy luck in names.

JAQUES: Rosalind is your love's name?ORLANDO: Yes, just.JAQUES: I do not like her name.ORLANDO: There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

Breath (from the book Blue Bridge)Whispering to myself With every step I take,Trying out names, for I know There is something yet to be called _..I know it, something up ahead Just around the bendOr over the rise _ A bird taking to the skyFrom the edge of a jagged cliff _ A bird floating outwardsIn silence _. A silence Waiting for a footstepTo crunch on stones, For a voice to fling upwardThrough sharp sunlight With a name_ callingBefore the bird could call Before the bird called.Oh the bird was there alright And sure it took flightWhen it heard me approach But it broke my heartWith a mighty croak!So I__ sitting here playing With a purple flowerSlender stem, no leaves Purple fizz __nd it__ quiet again. I am stillI am nothing And the hillIs a long, long slope Down, down, down to the seaFar below.I could roll I could runI could scream But I am nothing.A cool wind blows And the light is naked and namelessAnd the rocks are faces of angels And the bird in the sky wheelsAnd cries to forget the earth And its ancient bones __h, sensual pain _ Wings_. Wings_. Wings,Singing wings.If only I could begin To describe the emptinessWhich fills me to the brim With new breathI might almost lose my name And take instead a feather for my soul.

Do you really want to know where we come from?" she said. "In every century, in every country, they'll call us something different. They'll say we're ghosts, angels, demons, elemental spirits, and giving us a name doesn't help anybody. When did a name change what someone is?

My name," the boy said importantly, "is Stacey de Lacey." "But that's a girl's name!" blurted Oliver. Stacey de Lacey's face turned a dark shade of red. "Silence!" he shouted. "Stacey is one of those names that can be for a boy or a girl! Like Hilary, or Leslie, or...um... Anyway...!

Besides, what's in a name? Actually, a lot. Whether taken from a parent or grandparent, some saint, or even the late great Elvis, your name insists another person's dream of what you should have been. The portrait of some ancestral ideal lingers through heirloom names. Gender specific names imply all sorts of expectations. More than just a signifier used to summon, instruct, address, accuse, sometimes praise us, our names define and thereby limit us. They put us in a cage.

She felt as if the grave stones were whispering those names to her as she walked past... Those stones that bore no names seemed like closed mouths, sad mouths that forgotten how to speak. But perhaps the dead didn't mind what their names had once been?

Bury us, and mark our names above. Let us be free.

Since you haven__ got a name,_ he said. __ guess you can pick one for yourself. Would you like to pick one for me to write down?__he stopped rocking and looked at him. __ can do that? It__ legal and everything?__e smiled. __t__ a free country again,_ he said. __t least in theory.__he nodded. __nd when I pick a name it can be any name I want?__e nodded.__hat__ your name?___ictor,_ he said. __ic, for short.___kay,_ she said, leaning forward and taking the pad from under his large thing hands. __ow do you spell that?__e spelled it and she wrote it down. Her handwriting was perfectly small and legible. __an I be Victor, too?_ she said, looking up from the pad.He smirked. __t__ a boy__ name,_ he said. __ou__e a girl. You have to add an i and an a to the end if you want to make it a girl__ name.__he looked down at the name she had written and added the letters i and a to the end. __ictoria,_ she said, passing the notepad back to the cop.__ello, Victoria,_ he said, smiling, taking the pad and pen back and presenting his hand for a shake. __t__ nice to meet you, officially.

They've named the well after you.""How did they know my name?""They don't. They invented one.

Cats don__ have names,_ it said.__o?_ said Coraline.__o,_ said the cat. __ow, you people have names. That__ because you don__ know who you are. We know who we are, so we don__ need names.__here was something irritatingly self-centered about the cat, Coraline decided. As if it were, in its opinion, the only thing in any world or place that could possibly be of any importance.Half of her wanted to be very rude to it; the other half of her wanted to be polite and deferential. The polite half won.

With Cats, some say, one rule is true:Don__ speak till you are spoken to.Myself, I do not hold with that __ say, you should ad-dress a Cat.But always keep in mind that heResents familiarity.I bow, and taking off my hat,Ad-dress him in this form: O Cat!But if he is the Cat next door,Whom I have often met before(He comes to see me in my flat)I greet him with an oopsa Cat!I think I've heard them call him James __ut we've not got so far as names.

What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?''Cats don't have names,' it said.'No?' said Coraline.'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.

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.