By Any Other Name
Do you feel like your name, dear reader? I think I do—I find it hard to imagine myself as anyone else but Jennifer. I do not, in my estimation, look like a Julie or a Cynthia or a Tammy or a Linda, and certainly not at all like the names that we encountered in this week’s episode: certainly not Hildegard, nor Aelfgifu, and not even Mathilde. Yet, if we look through the lens of semiotics, this deep-seated "Jenniferness" is a bit of a linguistic illusion. In the world of Ferdinand de Saussure, my name is merely a signifier, a specific string of phonemes and letters, while the "me" sitting here is the signified. Hey there: signified here. Nice to see you. There is no natural, biological reason why the sound of "Jennifer" should represent this specific collection of memories, research interests, and half-finished knitting projects. It is an arbitrary label, a social contract signed at birth, proving that the link between a name and a person is held together by nothing more than repetition and collective agreement.
Despite this academic detachment, the semiotic triangle suggests that the "thought" of me and the "name" of me are inextricably linked by our shared culture. Forgive the grammar here, folks: this is tricky stuff to think about, and writing about it is like dancing about architecture. When the world says "Jennifer," it isn't just making a sound; it is invoking a reference. Over decades, that arbitrary label has become a "sticky" sign - one that is stuck to me. We are taught that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but semiotics reminds us that names aren't just passive labels: they are the vessels through which the world perceives our essence. Without the name, the essence becomes a much harder thing for the world to grasp.
Ultimately, I have to wonder if I grew into my name or if the name grew into me. While there is no inherent "Jennifer" DNA, the name has served as the linguistic scaffolding for my entire life. It is the sound that means "me" to the world, and to myself, a convenient shorthand for a human being. Perhaps we don't look like our names because of some cosmic destiny, but because we spend our lives filling those arbitrary sounds with the substance of our selves. But whether it’s the ancient weight of a mouthful like Aelfgifu or the 20th-century familiar of a Jennifer, (hey! That’s me!), surely our names remain the most durable artifacts we own, and perhaps the only part of our material culture that is entirely invisible, yet undeniably ours.
Jennifer (there I am again!)