I am, My name is
I was sitting in class the other day and each person that spoke introduced themselves first. We've been doing this for a couple of weeks to help remember names. As I was listening to my classmates, I thought about how some people said 'I'm Joe' or 'My name is Jack'. The choice of words is interesting because 'I am' shows that people feel that their name defines who they are. 'My name is' suggests that the name isn't quite as significant because a person would still be who they are, regardless of what their name is. In a sense, people define their names.
I read a book quite a few years ago that touches on this idea - the idea that we create the associations with our name. Names aren't by nature ugly or beautiful but we make them so by being who we are. If we meet a lot of really nice 'Michelle's then most likely our positive association will make us prefer the name Michelle. The same goes for negative associations.
How do you define your name?
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