What’s In A Name? 

What’s in a name? 

If you could choose your own name, who would you be?
A name is important, it’s an identity. Or is it just an identity badge?

A signpost to wear for the people you meet, a label to shout when they see you in the street.
A medal of honor or of something to come: Colonel, Professor, Intern, or Bum.
A word that announces you into a room, a nom de guerre or nom de plume.
Or perhaps a nickname for behind closed doors: an “I’ll let you use mine, if you let me use yours.

An insult, a put-down, a dredging of the past: something you can’t escape which will always outlast
Any title bestowed by Queen or by King, or a surname change from an engagement ring.
“He’s a DICK!” “She’s a BITCH!” They’re the HEAD CHEF at the Ritz?”
A show of possession, origin or control, a transient position or your life’s greatest role: …

She’s his editor; he’s my dad; I’m his husband from Islamabad.
The honorary letters in your signature block, the title you use when you visit the doctor.
A caricature or a show of respect: ‘Mr. Never Was’ / ‘Mrs. Hasn’t Happened Yet’…
Or a stage-bound creation for fortune and fame. Go on, tell me: what’s in a name? 

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Kebab Wrist

To my friends. I’ll always be Kebab Wrist, and it’s my own fault.  

They all had nicknames. I was desperate for one. Not least because the last day of school was looming and with it our deadline to design Leavers’ Shirts, displaying our nicknames for the ages. And so on a drunken night belonging to one of those halcyon days, when a piece of kebab flopped over a polystyrene tray and came to rest its greasy warmth on the undercarriage of my left wrist, I proclaimed: “FROM THIS MOMENT, I SHALL BE KEBAB WRIST!”

The shirt was printed, posted, and worn…and the rest is history.

Kebab Wrist hasn’t aged well: I’m 5 years vegetarian, and this reminder of one’s carnivorous past is triggering. But it’s not the name that interests me; it’s the character behind the name. Where Jordan Frazer is mercurial, ever-searching for answers he’ll probably never find, Kebab Wrist is consistently animated and authoritative. Where Jordan Frazer will pop a tummy Gaviscon before a heady Bloody Mary, Kebab Wrist drinks now, worries later. If Jordan Frazer is fast becoming all elbow-patches, Armagnac, and wingback recliners, Kebab Wrist is a leather-clad, tequila-soaked stage-dive. And any time we get the gang back together, I transform into Kebab Wrist, like a civilian into a superhero. 

At home, I’m someone else entirely. To my wife, I’m Jordie. Occasionally Muffin. Sometimes I’m Pancake, but only when she’s prepared to be Buttercup. Pet names are a relationship’s rite of passage. And when I’m at home, I’m cute. To be honest, I think that I’m Muffin or Pancake just so she’ll let me go out and be Kebab Wrist. And I think she allows me that privilege so Kebab Wrist doesn’t infiltrate the sanctity of our marriage. That’s fair enough; I wouldn’t want that bastard in my house either. 

Nicknames allow us to live our gang fantasies: harmless tokens of eras we’ve defined; insignias of exclusive clubs that turn away newcomers to protect our human connections of friendship and love. Nicknames are great until they’re not… 

‘Jordo’ 

At work, I was Jordo. This wasn’t a name I invented. It was allocated by colleagues. 

For a while, I thought a work persona proposed a healthy separatism: as long as I knew when I was being Jordo, it would prevent him from contaminating who I really was. I decided this Jordo character would allow me to preserve my ‘true self’: the Jordan at home, with his old-vinyl collection and recipe for rice pudding. 

But Jordo started to take over. It was frightening: that with a tiny change of name came an entire personality swing. Jordo threw his weight around. He signed off emails, ”Kind Regards, Jordo.” He used hefty-but-meaningless terminology like ‘let’s circle-back‘ for an ‘executive summary’ and ‘what’s the ask?’ I found myself excusing rude behavior because it was Jordo and ‘that’s just what he was like’ as the character in the suit I had to play as part of my role in the Great Game of Life. It wasn’t me, not the real me. 

But it got worse. I decided I was much too important to write the full Kind Regards and so my signoff was reduced to “KRs, Jordo.” I adopted passive-aggression as standard in any communication I sent zingers like “As you know if you read my previous email…” It all came to a head one Saturday morning when my wife asked me to look over a grocery list she’d written out so I could add anything. I asked her if she’d “Leave the draft on my desk with a sticky note labeled JORDO TO REVIEW.” 

IT WAS A SATURDAY AND I WAS AT HOME. What a dick…

I’d spent so long thinking Kebab Wrist was the disruptive element to keep on the perimeter that I’d handed Jordo the door keys and all the alarm codes, unaware of the danger he posed. I allowed the streams to cross. I allowed Jordan to become a ghost. And I was busted. 

Beware the fake ID 

Imagine if you started a job and were assigned an entirely different name. That alongside your ‘Desktop Postural Assessment’ you were given a name badge that said Nigel Coltrice or Jonquille Cornflowers. You wouldn’t wear it — it’s not your name! 

But each morning, as I Double-Windsored my tie, snapped shut my cufflinks, and transformed into Jordo, that’s exactly what I did. And the sad part is that I suspect it’s what everyone was doing. It wasn’t until I decided to quit to pursue my creative passions that I could have honest conversations with some of those colleagues. Masks fell that I didn’t know were being worn. I suppose it came from insecurity, surface knowledge that everyone was everyone else’s competitor in one way or another. If not directly, then eventually.  

My own name

Now, I value the autonomy of choosing my own name. It is my most immediate expression of identity. It projects how I see myself and allows me to evaluate whether that projection pleases me. Using different names in different arenas can be healthy: compartmentalizing personality traits to emphasize or suppress depending on the task at hand. It promotes the oft-quoted but rarely practiced mantra ‘Work/Life Balance’, reserving my authentic self for my loved ones at home. It lets me cut loose and recapture the abandon of youth with my oldest friends. And I think it protects artistic integrity of my work: I use a pseudonym when I’m writing my column as “The Millennial Anxiety Uncle,” and I adopt a larger-than-life Rockstar persona when I’m onstage. 

Most importantly, my wife’s got Jordan back. 

But I’m staying hypervigilant of my mental health so  that this doesn’t devolve into a dissociative disorder. I won’t be conforming to the traits of characters invented for me by others. And where my characters are my own inventions for these purposes, I’ll be watching them carefully. 

They have a habit of turning into monsters.  

(Image courtesy of Lauro Rodríguez via Unsplash)