What's in a name?

Practical applications?

The meaning of great art is usually hidden. It should be, it has to speak to the subconscious. I feel that true art has a personal meaning for the person who is subjected to it. Art has practical application, it just isn't clear right from the onset. For sure, humanity needs the arts to grasp the bigger picture. Or so is my understanding.

I am taking you on a tour: have you ever thought about your given name? It is very personal but you had no control over it. Perhaps you are not called by the name you got at birth. It's shortened or "William" became "Bill" because it was more convenient. Some people change their name. I recall a lady who was called by the traditional name "Fokje", who at some point realised that it sounded very close to "fuck you". That's something else than Rose, given any other name (Shakespeare reference that I just had to cram into this post). When the name was given to her by her parents, the world was still large and the English/American language and culture had not penetrated all that much in the Netherlands. We live in a global world nowadays and especially the small Netherlands is heavily influenced by American culture and language. Gradually more and more people around her had this negative connotation with her name.  This was unbearable to her and she changed her name to one she liked. Good for her.

What's in your name?

Are you aware about how you feel about your name? Perhaps you have never given it any thought. Does it really matter you may think. I believe it does, because every time someone calls you by your name, it has an effect in the subconscious. One way to find out about it, is speaking your name out loud repeatedly and feel what it does to you. You could even sing your name.

AHA! So this is what I was leading up to? Yep. You can, or rather I can, sing names in overtone style! Sometimes I happen upon a name that sounds particularly well. A few days ago I saw an interesting post on twitter about noise pollution from someone I did not know. He lives in New York but his name is obviously not Anglo-Saxon. So what do you do when you are on twitter and you want people to pronounce your name correctly. Exactly, you write it phonetically in your bio so every time someone clicks on your name, they see how it is properly pronounced. I was stoked, I immediately realised: this name is beautiful when I sing it slowly, very slowly.

pronunciation overtone-style

What about my name.

Now it's getting personal. Singing a name can be a tough challenge. My own name Harry has two rr's in a row. You probably do not realize this when English is your first language, but in the Dutch language an R is almost as close to hell as our throat-gutting G. It completely breaks the name in two, so to speak. I go from a very open A where my mouth is wide open, to this fluttering tongue consonant and then I have to get my tongue sorted out again to make an I. Awkward really....

But don't get any ideas and start calling me Bob or John. As awkward as my name might be to pronounce, I do not feel bad about hearing it. When you think that I am in any way suggesting that everybody should change their names to one they like better, you are wrong. But when your name sounds like "fuck you"? Yeah, then you should.