The Name Game

If you were ever to meet my parents, you’d recognize in an instant that they were definitely not hippies—and no, they did not name me Penelope Love.

 

When people ask me why I changed my name, I often say, “For the same reason Esther Pauline Friedman did.”

 

You’re probably asking, “Who the heck is that?”

 

Well, more than likely you know her as Ann Landers. Or consider Henry John Deutschendorf Jr., the given name of one of the finest artistic geniuses of our time. I’m almost certain you would agree that the moniker John Denver is just more apropos, being poetic, musical, and effective at carving a lasting impression of the beauty he resonated in our hearts.

 

Yes, in fact I rationalized my name change in this way: that having a memorable name would be essential to my work as a writer. But the real reason I changed it? What forced me to? My heart begged me to—so what choice did I have?

 

Following a speedy divorce in my late 20s, I felt torn about reclaiming the name my parents pinned on me at birth. I no longer felt like I was the same person as before the marriage, nor did I wish to regress into unconscious patterns that had shaped me while identified by that name. Because from my new-felt blossoming perspective on life, the name just didn’t resonate. I had become anything but my past chaotic accumulation of psychological and emotional neuroses and limitations, which my heart yearned to be free from.

 

Rewinding here to about six months prior to the divorce, I’d read a book called Grace and Grit. This was an intimate portrayal of contemporary philosopher Ken Wilber’s writings spliced with diaries of his late wife, who was given the name Terry Killam at birth. She claimed, “I changed my name to Treya.” Because during a clairaudient dream, she was told that her name should be Estrella, the Spanish word for star. She didn’t get around to changing it for some time, because in her words, “I would have been embarrassed to change my name; my own judgment blocked me from ‘following that dream.’”

 

“How silly to change one’s name!” she originally thought. “What nonsense.” But Treya mused for two fulfilling pages about exactly how she changed as her name did. She reflected on how she’d recently started trusting herself, being kinder to herself, and embracing work that didn’t come from her past or from anything anybody encouraged her to do. She then closed her journal entry celebrating her rebirth into life “strengthened by my past but with a direction that is truly my own.”

 

That hit me hard, as I delicately set the book down to reflect on this insight. I felt certain that one day I’d change my name too. But when and to what? I too was ready for rebirth, longing for a name to soothe me from within by erupting the volcanic passion secretly smoldering inside me for as long as I could remember. For a name that would make me smile at its very idea. Something that reminded me not of the fragmented details of my life, but of my presence—maybe it would even evoke joy for the sheer blessing of a sound so beautiful.

 

And so I reflected on, “What is the true significance of my given name, anyway?” Does it define me? Embody me in any way? Especially in light of Shakespeare’s “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” I knew that. I believed it. Ironically however I quickly learned my parents and other familiar faces did not share my enthusiastic vision of being reborn.

 

But this wasn’t about pleasing them. The politician in me had died and the people pleaser had left the building forever. This was about doing something liberating for myself, like honoring myself with a gift I never knew I’d always wanted. Yes, it was about releasing shackles of past self-abuse and making the most loving choice for myself. Loving because, well, it just feels good to be called Penelope Love. I mean, if the diva formerly known as Dana Elaine Owens could rap, act and sing into her glorious expression as Queen Latifah, why shouldn’t I too be allowed to treat myself equally like royalty? Starting with choosing a lovely name to go by.

 

Still I was concerned that people thought I’d pushed the envelope of personal freedom a bit far, so I concocted scientific reasons for my name change. Whenever I felt the need to explain myself to members of this judgmental crowd, I formulated my explanations on the life’s work of Masaru Emoto, the Japanese scientist and author of The Hidden Messages in Water. Emoto is a genius who has snapped thousands of water crystal photographs after being in different jars labeled with various words, such as “love,” “peace,” “hate,” “war” and so on.

 

Emoto’s experiments revealed that water exposed to positively charged words formed crystalline patterns of geometric complexity, fullness and utter beauty, whereas in the face of negatively charged ones, the water crystals were distorted and deformed, if they were to take any shape at all. And so I rationalized, since the human body is about 70 percent water, and the brain is even higher up there at 90 percent, then my name change would affect the very composition and frequency of my body at the molecular level. This no doubt would affect the way I would feel if I were to be called by a different name.

 

And while this is almost a “socially acceptable because it’s been scientifically proven” explanation for changing my name…again, really, I changed it because after many months of fighting against my heart, I couldn’t deny the impulse.

 

So I scoured the Web in search of the perfect name. The significance of this choice could not be underestimated in my eyes, for it would function as the vibrational link of my self-expression with the whole universe. And this was symbolic of “loving myself”—quite literally. Now even before I logged on, I knew Love would be my last name. As far as first names, I had a penchant for knitting and enjoyed Greek mythology, so I quickly found my attention captivated by my first and ultimate choice: Penelope! Penelope means “silent weaver,” with the additional benefit of an origin as oozingly romantic as Grecian queen could have. I thought to myself, “Yes! This could be it.” So after hours of mouse clicking through the database of BehindTheName.com, I’d finally narrowed my vast span of choices to two: Penelope or Mariah.

 

“Yes, that’s true, I am always myself,” I exhaled on the outside, but inwardly a firecracker burst. How the bleep did he know those were almost my exact choices?

Now here’s where it gets eerie. The following evening, I attended my very first meditation class at a center where the teacher (now my husband) was then known by a name obviously different from his birth name…which, in light of the previous evening’s Internet hunt, totally intrigued me. So after class, we kicked off our first intimate conversation with my nervous but brilliant pick-up line, “Tell me, why’d you change your name?” And I’ll never forget his answer because it was completely unexpected, as he turned the question back on me.

 

“What does it matter whether your name is Penelope or Maria, when you are always yourself?”

 

“Yes, that’s true, I am always myself,” I exhaled on the outside, but inwardly a firecracker burst. How the bleep did he know those were almost my exact choices? Unless he were a world-class CIA hacker who stayed up spying on me into the wee hours of the night, there is simply no way he could have known about Penelope and Mariah. Yes, he’d left off the “h” in choice number two, but c’mon! So I took it as a sign and in that instant, I became…drum roll please—Penelope Love.

 

He got it! I got it! And somehow I felt as if the choice to name myself Penelope had been decided long before I knew it, known by a much deeper part of myself than the frantic Internet prowler. Now for the first time, I felt myself in direct communion with that gentle, patient and joyous aspect of my being—that sensitive and loving presence, an intelligence beyond measure, such that it could have even funneled through the very mouth of my husband-to-be just what I needed to hear so I would have a beautiful story to tell you one day.

 

So, what about you? What feels beautiful to you? What sounds so celestial, in fact, that you would from here on choose to perceive your very experience of this world through its filter? What would you name yourself if the confidence of the superhero Thor pulsed through your veins? Anyone who has ever gone full speed ahead into a legal name change knows that this is a potent manner by which to release your past and any lingering fears of what people might think of you.

 

So next time someone asks you, “And your name is…?” you will say…

 

 

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