If Romeo and Juliet were not Montagues and Capulets, but simply “star-crossed lovers” who met at a dance, there would have been no wicked swordplay between families divided and no need for poison or tombs. (Of course this would have ruined the Shakespearean classic, but that’s a question for another time.) Instead, the duo could have courted and married with great joy in both families. Alas, it was not to be, and readers are left to wonder what is really in a name.
I ask: does renaming an object or oneself change one’s properties? Of course, an individual will retain his ‘essence’, with or without his original name, just as the object will maintain its shape and color. However, the way in which others perceive him will change, and this shift will influence the individual himself.
If Romeo was not a “Montague”, but merely “that boy from across the street”, he would have been welcomed into Juliet’s family as her suitor. The same can be said for non-fictitious individuals and their ability to redefine. Without the moniker “Melanie”, for example, I can shake off all prior identities: I am not necessarily shy or intelligent or clumsy or optimistic. I can be all and none of these things; I am whomever I choose to be.
This summer, I will be renaming myself when I participate in UCLA UniCamp, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sending low-income Los Angeles kids to summer camp in the wilderness. Camp is a blast for the children and for the volunteers, who are blessed to watch the kids play and experience joy during their week at camp.
As a volunteer, I am planning to fundraise $375 to subsidize the cost of attending camp for some of the kids, and during the summer, I will be heading down to Camp River Glen myself to be a counselor or specialist for a week in July. I am so excited to share this experience with my newfound friends and campmates.
My name will be “Mochi”, a fitting name for a mochi loving fiend like me. I will be renaming myself this summer in the hopes that I can nurture young kids to rename and thus redefine themselves, in the same way that a young boy named Smart did many years before. One of the old counselors told the story:
When UniCamp first started, a young boy who attended the camp was talking to his counselor. “If you could be called anything,” the counselor asked, “What would you call yourself?” The boy thought for a moment and said: “I want to be called smart. I’ve never been called smart before.” And so his name for the week became Smart.
Some of the children I meet will be redefining themselves for the first time, and really deciding the new way they want others to perceive them. Others will be looking to escape the worry of fitting in at school or impressing their friends, while a great many will simply be there to have the time of their lives. Regardless, naming is great fun for the kids and the counselors, and allows both groups to separate themselves from the preconceptions of outside life.
At my first UniCamp meeting, not being tied to “Melanie” really allowed me to feel open about acting silly. Because nobody knows me and nobody is looking to judge, I can be comfortable singing a song about bubblegum at the top of my lungs and making “om nom nom” noises. It is absolutely liberating to separate myself from what I’ve done in college, and to be “Mochi” instead of “Melanie”.
I can’t wait for the children at camp to have that same chance to redefine themselves, to say: “I want to be smart and funny and outgoing,” without us knowing any differently. I want them to sing in front of crowds if they want to, to act crazily, to jump onto trees and to dance without worry. I want to value each one of them, and watch them as they learn to value each other. To learn to withhold judgment, to grasp hold of their wispy dreams and hold tight, and to learn to believe in themselves, whoever they may be when they arrive.
The first step is in the name.
My fundraising page:
http://unicamp.kintera.org/campathon/mochi_melaniegin
One Lovely Day 
Cool. Kinda like college.
i disagree in a sense with your notion of how renaming someone will change the way in which a person is perceived.I’m not sure if it’s just a flaw I’m noticing in the way you worded it throughout this piece or my misinterpretation of your writing, but it seems here as if you’re saying that (paraphrasing from what you said): a change in one’s name will result in a change in how others perceive the one, this shift then influencing the one.The flaw I noticed here (in my opinion, as you’re free to disagree of course) is that it seems to me that the actual act of changing one’s name, say in your case from “Melanie” to “Moshi” would not in my own view change anything about you, it is on the contrary how you decide to change yourself that will shape my perception of you. I guess my point is that I see a reversal in ordering of influence– it is not that other’s see the change in name and start treating you differently, this then influencing you…I believe the change that comes from a name (which I do believe is very real, as you do) needs to fundamentally be derived from the person themselves, prior to any outside influence. If we simply let the perceptions of others guide what a name will be there would be nothing to a name, and this is why I see flaw in the way you worded the shift of influence from name –> others perception –> self, as I see it as a name–>self–>others perception (–> : influenceing…). We, as people bearing names, shape a name’s meaning and from this I believe comes others perception (and even this perception has variation). If we simply attribute the meaning of a name to other’s perception of a name, there would never have been any basis to set this perception from originally, right? Where would the perception of the name come from?Sorry if that is unclear in any way, I just thought I’d point out that I am a bit troubled by your description of how a name influences, as I feel I need to disagree with the way you’ve described the order of influence. I can see a little bit what you mean by preconceptions shaping how some might view a person, but what you need to acknowledge is that we all see people differently and in the end it truly is out ‘essence’ which gets carried into a name, whether it fits others preconceived notions or not. We determine what names mean, and we also are the only one’s who have the power to change what someone else’s name means to us, in this way I feel the influence of names can only really be influenced by our own actions, and not how other’s perceive them. Let me know your thoughts, as I’m very interested to how one would argue otherwise! 🙂 Cheers.
So ive decided that if you write a book — im buying it
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When I was a boy, I always saw myself as a hero in comic books and in movies. I grew up believing this dream.
But as important as the job to be done by government in the neighborhoods, the people must also be involved.