What's in a Name?: Naming and Self-Naming in the African American Philosophic Tradition

by Michael Alan Reuben

In the most basic understanding, names are used to identify something or someone. The right to naming has been assigned to many different classes of people. In the Book of Genesis, God gives Adam the right and duty to categorize and name all that make up the earth. Throughout the European tradition, parents have had the honor and duty to assigning a name to offspring (often through patriarchal traditions like Iceland’s tradition of adding –son or –dottir to the father’s first name and making that the surname of the offspring depending on sex). During the period of American chattel slavery, the naming process was destroyed and distorted for African peoples. Therefore the African-American experience the process of self-naming has been critical to both assigning a specific past (whether communal or individual) and to defining a personal mission, both for persons emerging from slavery and the aerosol artists that are creating from and for the oppressed.

The name is critical to someone and the meanings in a single name can cover a wide spectrum. For an example we can look at my name: Michael Alan Martin Reuben. The names Michael and Alan were given to me by my parents to focus their hopes for my future and solidify myself in the family. I was to have the first initial ‘M’ as according to Jewish tradition families keep the initials of those recently passed away. The names Michael and Alan honor formative figures in my parents’ lives, but the figures also presented a model my parents hoped I would continue (both namesakes were doctors with a passion for learning). Reuben is a recently formulated version of my family name. It was created partially to Americanize, while also created to avoid restrictive labor regulations at a specific job. Martin is the only name I was able to give myself. While preparing for my baptism and confirmation I drew upon two spiritual leaders (Pope Saint Martin I and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) to both center myself in the Christian tradition and provide direction to what I sought to accomplish. This example shows what naming (and self-naming) can provide for a person. It can center someone in a community whether specific or vast. It can create goals and expectations. It can also be used to shelter and hide specific truths about one’s life.

When Sojourner made an ‘”act of profound defiance”[1] and changed her name, she threw off the shackles of her past life and dove straight into a life that her name defined and proposed. She would use the name and its Biblical implications to place herself in the vast Christian history that was so important to her. She would be constantly journeying toward truth and spreading truth on her journey. This was a profound and empowering statement. Proclaiming truth has always been an intensely empowering act, and this self-naming made the former Isabella Baumfree a truly empowered woman.

Fredrick Douglass self-naming process took longer. As he escaped from bondage his surname moved from Bailey to Johnson. This was simply to remove himself from the context of slavery that he was stuck in for the previous portion of his life. After he was able to throw of the yoke of slavery physically, he made the spiritual change in his name. The name progressed again from Johnson to Douglass. With a certain level of humor, Douglass said that he didn’t want to be another Johnson in a community filled with Johnsons the name meant more than that to him and those he loved. The man who helped him most as a newly ‘freedman’, Mr. Johnson was reading The Lady of the Lake when Fredrick asked him to help with a name. The character Douglas made such an impression that Mr. Johnson thought it was critical to describing the new life he saw laid before Fredrick.

It is important to note and revisit the fact that both Sojourner Truth and Fredrick Douglass to radically new names because the names originally theirs were so fragrantly outside of their being. Their birth-names were so intrinsically wrapped with their inhuman bondage that they had to be destroyed. Their original names were attempts to hide the true essence of these great figures from themselves.

Aerosol artists in the golden age of ‘bombing’ (the period when New York City subways were mobile canvases beautifying the entire city) had an important ritual of self-naming. AMRL, ZEPHYR, and TAKI 181 all provide examples of the critical aspects to consider when looking at a self-assumed name.

AMRL wrote during the early 1970s. His surname was Admiral, and he had great pride in it. He wanted to use his family name to identify himself, but that would prove to be dangerous. His father was a transit worker who had daily interactions with the trains. For his own safety AMRL removed every other letter in his name so that he can maintain the identity that he was so proud of, but he could hide that identity to those who disapproved of his art.

ZEPHYR’s name has a mythical quality. The word itself makes us think of something that seems to be constantly passing but always present. That is what ZEPHYR looked to when he created his name. After moving between many names ZEPHYR became his most common assumed name because the artistic statement he wanted to make. He hoped to pervade the consciousness of New Yorkers while being still hidden in anonymity.

Finally TAKI 181’s name provides an example of the trait that was (and still is) most common among the great artists. While he still maintained individuality with TAKI, the 181 was critical. It represented his community. As important as his individuality was, the specific neighborhood that TAKI 181 had roots in was just as great. The number at the end of the name (which was a common artistic devise) centered TAKI 181 in his specific community while also offering the love and respect that he thought it deserved.

There are three critical points in the naming and self-naming process: identification with some specific community or individual, expectations of a destiny, and the opportunity for defiance. Fredrick Douglass (and his naming partner Mr. Johnson) identifies himself with a fictional, historical character that is critical to understanding the life that Fredrick had lived to that point. TAKI 181 identifies himself as a member of his larger community, those living on 181^st street. My name and specifically my first initial relate me directly to my familial community and members in it that I never met. Sojourner Truth and ZEPHYR both have their aspirations laid out in their names. Their names were chosen not just to center themselves in an empowering situation but also to show to the world the possibilities that existed inside of them. Defiance is apparent in Bailey, Isabella Baumtree, and AMRL. When Fredrick Bailey and Isabella Baumtree looked at the names forced upon them they were denied the opportunity to understand themselves truly. AMRL flipped the defiance generations later when he chose to hide his true identity to protect both himself and his father. It is also important to recognize that the boundaries of these categories are amorphous. Sojourner Truth’s name does outline the path of her new life, but it is also a way to identify herself in the vast Christian community and its history. Fredrick Douglass does identify himself with figures of the past with his name, but the name helps shape the direction he would move after the name truly became his.

When looking at these powerful figures and their use of names and self-naming it is imperative that we take note when we identify ourselves. Names are the most obvious ways of identification, but so much in daily life acts as identifying factors. The way a white individual acts amongst a group of black individuals, or the way a woman acts in the company of a group of men help identify themselves in the context of critical social issues of racism and patriarchy. Even the adjectives we use to describe ourselves open various interpretations to identity, even those not specifically addressed. When I proudly declare my status as a radical feminist, men and women both are able to identify me on that specific level, but the words are more forceful since they are such an act of defiance to the norms that surround feminism. It may seem at first superficial, but if thought is put to the immediate identifications placed on individuals so much critical information can be deduced and as empowered individuals it is essential that we take care in every form of personal identification. After all, even if a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, there is a great deal of information in the word rose that determines its fate and impact on our lives.

Works Cited

Collins, Patricia Hill. Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota P, 1998.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and American Slave. New York: Penguin Classics, 1986.

Miller, Ivor L. Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City. Jackson: University P of Mississippi, 2002.

Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Battle Creek, 1878.