(Arrowhead photo from Wiki; Rain Image by Roman Grac from Pixabay)
---What's in a name? Is a name is a name is a name? ---
I looked up, “Native American Tribes and choosing
their names of people,” and I was directed to:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Native+American+Tribes+and+choosing+their+names+of+people&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS1039US1040&oq=Native+American+Tribes+and+choosing+their+names+of+people&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCjI4NDUxajFqMTWoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
where it was written:
“Native American naming
traditions vary depending on each particular tribe. Typically,
they are derived from nature, represented by an animal symbolizing desirable
characteristics or a certain trait. A Native American name
gives us an insight into the personality of the one who possesses it.Dec 15, 2017,”
Which
apparently was from:
https://www.ethnictechnologies.com/blog/2018/10/2/native-american-naming-traditions#:~:text=Native%20American%20naming%20traditions%20vary,the%20one%20who%20possesses%20it
which
is an article called, Native
American Naming Traditions, Written by Kathy
Moore. Published Dec. 15, 2017.
Years ago, I associated with
some Wiccans and Shamans and Magicians, some of whom were studying with a Native
American Medicine Man. I always had a hard time with my birth name and how to
spell it, and I always had a hard time choosing my “magical” name. Each time I had a new big magical experience I felt like changing my magical name. I was told
by the Native American apprentice medicine man that in some tribes, a person
would change his or her name at each new phase of life they began or had been
through. It was not, then, uncommon to have one name for one’s youth, then another
one for one’s middle age, then another for one’s old age.
Well, I am a lot like that. As a small child, I would rummage the pages
of the World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary wherein there were lists of all kinds
of interesting tidbits of and charts of general knowledge about things in life
on earth and the cosmos. One of them was a long list of names and their
meanings. I used to study the names the same way I studied the planets. I
decided if ever I had a horse I would name it Asher, which means, “The Bearer
of Salvation.” And I had already learned to play the song “Exodus” from the Academy
Award-winning film, so, of course, I had to look up Exodus. When I was
old enough to be conscious of the fact that I wanted to be a writer when I grew
up, I decided I liked the name Sonya Worthington as an author’s name (pen name)
because, in my own interpretation, it meant that wisdom is worth a ton.
I never did go with that pen name, though. I did like Willa a lot better—Willa
Cather, that is. It was taken.
And I never did descend upon one long enough (duration-wise) to use it. Oh, I did now
and then change the spelling of my legal name, but made no drastic changes. I
did write for a newspaper for a while under a different name, but that was a
married name I dropped when I got divorced to go back to my old name. Now, I am
out to find a pen name.
It’s been tough. My legal name was not initially my birth name. I was
given a different name at my birth than the name that went down on my birth
certificate when my parents changed it. I have always thought of myself as
having a phantom life unlived, or in the land of the undead, but not meaning vampires--just one between the worlds between names. I really should do
a ceremony to bury that name, but I actually love the name I was given at
birth. I had a different first name which was Catherine); the middle name was
Marie. Then my mom wanted to name me Maria and then Marie. My dad
did not want me to have either of those names. His name was changed from his
birth certificate to sound more American and less ethnically Italian, just as
his dad’s before him upon his arrival in America. My dad’s dad had a name that
probably no one outside of Italy has ever heard of before--unless maybe they
came from the old country too. And they could probably not spell it fast enough
to write it down fast enough, either, on the records at Ellis Island. It had a
couple z’s in it.
I have acquiesced, kept my name for
now as Marianne Bencivengo instead of Mary Ann Bencivengo or Marianne
Benci or Marie Benci. Some day, you might find some of those names
for me floating around out there. I guess since I do mention them, they already are.
My dad loved folklore and used to
take me around the neighborhoods to look at the street signs of all the streets
named after Native American tribes that lived in our area or in the NE of the
U.S. How many times have I written elsewhere before that as a child I used to
run the woods and find arrowheads propped up against trees or jutting up out of
the ground? I cannot count how many anymore. Nor can I count how many times I
have changed my name or name spelling, or how many nicknames my friends used to
give me.*
*
"Philly" for being philosophical.
"Ben" short for Bencivengo.
"Bennie" after Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" as friends would sing the song to me when I would walk down the school hallways.
"Mare" short for Mary. (My dad, one of my cousins, and one of my friends, and two of my friends close to my family, would call me Mare. Even when I was little my dad would sing to me, "The old grey mare, she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be..." and he would laugh--he was always singing all kinds of folk songs and laughing and telling jokes a lot; when he wasn't he was very Saturnine serious. By now it is true--I ain't what I used to be.
