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More Essays
Canada's Defences in Shambles
(Jan 7, 2003)
more
Adoption Open Records Bill-77 Delayed
(Dec 13, 2002)
more
Forever, Brothers
(Nov 18, 2002)
more
About Birthdays And Ghosts
(May 17, 2002)
more
An Open Letter To Anne McLellan
(May 9, 2002)
more
Coming Out Gay At 16
(Feb 11, 2002)
more
Male Bonding / Am I Gay?
(Jan 23, 2002)
more
The Times We Live In
(Dec 5, 2001)
more
About Names and Their Meanings
(Jul 15, 2001)
more
Movie Review: Chocolat
(Feb 15, 2001)
more |
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About Names and Their Meanings
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Most of us have one name, given at birth, which we keep for life.
Those of us who are adopted have more. Some adoptees consider
changing their names upon finding their birth names. I belong to an
online adoption peer support group. Many of us do a schizophrenic
dance in our message signatures; names before and after, names
pregnant with meaning, emotion, baggage. It got me thinking.
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A name is very personal thing. It is a powerful piece of who
we are. A name is applied to us, identifies us, it is the sound
we respond to. Our name is an invocation of who we are; repeated
it becomes a chant -- a seductive siren call from a lover; an
angry reproach from a parent. It is personal, it is fundamental:
it is not all of who we are and yet we are someone quite
different when it changes.
At 14 I had a vision one morning, very powerful, about being
a soldier in Korea and, in crossing an open space, rice fields
perhaps, being gunned down and dying there, my buddies at the
edge of the space, hiding in the trees. I was no longer in the
body of the soldier. I reached down to the lifeless shell and
examined the tag around his neck to see the name: James Allan
Ross. A date of death flashed before me and I floated up and
away into the heavens.
I was startled, as a result, when on my 18th birthday I was
given my adoption papers (one pink piece of paper from the
Saskatchewan courts) with my original birth name emblazoned on
the first line: "In the matter of the adoption of JAMES ALLAN
ROSS". (I had always known I was adopted; this was the first time
I had seen or heard my birth name.) That vision a few years
earlier had been so powerful, seemed so real. I must have heard
the name somewhere as a very, very young child -- did it pass
from my birth mother's lips the one time she held me in her
arms in the hospital? Did she cry and whisper it into my ear?
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In my teens I wrote poetry full of teen angst, about not
belonging in the world; about death, isolation, and desperate
loneliness. I signed the poems James Allan Ross: the name in my
vision. I even made a recording of some of them at 18 which I
made a gift as a one-off LP to my sister. I am so grateful to
have that time-capsule today because that young man still lives
in my heart; the anguish, the grief, the resignation in the
readings touches my soul profoundly.
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I have asked my birth mother where the names James Allan
come from and what they mean to her. There are no James or
Allans in the family tree that I can find. I really must ask
her again because the answer seemed non-comittal. I hope the
names mean something to her: she said she just liked them.
Maybe I was named from Hollywood glamour magazines of the day
-- James Dean and Allan Ladd were two of the biggest stars at
the time. (In 1954, Allan Ladd starred in a movie named
"Saskatchewan". Co-incidence? or synchronicity?)
My adopted name is Roland Alexander Inglis. Roland is the
name of my maternal grandfather; Alexander is my dad's middle
name; and my dad's father's middle name; and my great-grandfather's
middle name. As a child, I was named Sandy, a diminiutive for
Alexander. I had blond hair and until age 11 I remained Sandy.
I tried on Roland over the summer and then settled on Alexander
(Alex) in September when I changed from grade to junior high
school.
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Now I am 47 years old; I have been Alexander for 35 years;
my mom still calls me Sandy. Bless her heart! She uses
Alex/Alexander sometimes but you know I really prefer it when
she calls me Sandy and in this moment I realise I have never
told her that. I will do that next time we talk. Because Sandy
is her son; for me Sandy evokes all the memories of childhood
and the unconditional love and safety I knew growing up.
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Scots ancestry has always loomed large in my way of being:
the Inglis came from Aberdeen in the 1820s and moved to Toronto.
Ross is a rather Scottish name, though not exclusively. I had
always thought Scots background "fit". So when I learned my birth
dad's name was Barclay -- very English sounding to me -- I was
surprised. The name doesn't resonate inside; it doesn't stick.
Casually, in an early e-mail with my birth dad, he mentioned
the family name had been changed in 1930 -- from Swerdfeger. I
was astonished and immediately tried to determine what the origin
of the name is. I recognized Swerd as being "sword". In a picture
of my birth dad's father, taken on the Canadian prairies in the
late 1930s, I couldn't detect anything especially English about
the man. And no wonder! He has that craggy, dour look of a dutch
peasant ploughing a field with a pipe in one hand and an ox being
guided in his other hand. Swerdfeger, it turns out, is North
German/Dutch and means "sword polisher" or "sword forger"; perhaps
my ancestors were workers attached to an elite group of knights.
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So many preferences became clear in that instant, made sense,
rang true with my roots. My first taste of genetic memory! The very
first images which held magic for me were portraits of peasants
dancing gayly painted by the dutch master Breugel. I adore organ
music but am very fussy about the "sound" of the organ: north german
and dutch organs harmonize with my soul, feel right; not italian
organs; not english organs; not french organs; not even south german
organs. The same is true for harpsichords of the 1600s.
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A very evocative image for me is a drawing by Arthur Rackham
of the young boy Siegfried standing with a look of passionate joy
and joy, one arm raised holding the sword he has just fashioned,
pointing to heaven. In the Wagnerian opera Rachkam illustrated,
Siegfried's parents have died and he was raised "adopted" by a
dwarf. The dwarf had tried many times to forge the sword Siegfried
has just made; the boy has the magic skill because the pieces
come from his father's sword which had been shattered in battle
leading to his father's immediate and violent death. Only the son
could restore the sword.
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A second very powerful personal myth is the story of Parsifal
which has been told in many variations. Especially poignant for
an adoptee, a young man stumbles upon a spiritual oasis in the
forest while wandering alone and lost. He doesn't even know his
name. After tasting grace but not able to incorporate it into
his life, he is banished from the kingdom and does not find it
again until middle age. Parisfal, we discover, means "innocent
fool". Adoptees usually are not allowed to know their own names
or those of their parents and birth family.
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The name Swerdfeger, although I would never consider changing
my last name to it, definitely evokes in my being so much
of what my genetic heritage probably is. I have traced this
branch of the family, by some good luck, back to Bavaria
and the 1650s. I wish I knew more because there must be some
further Norse blood in there. My other very very strong
pull is to Russian, perhaps Ukrainian; and to very northern
climes. My honeymoon was spent partly in the Shetland Islands;
the name means "Sword Hilt Land". I absolutely insisted on
going there (we compromised; my wife got a week in Paris as
well) and while on the beautiful island, a three hour flight
north of Scotland and closer to Norway than the UK, I felt
a sense of peace I have not experienced from the land before.
It was profound, very deep, very ancient.
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So what's in a name? A lot. A name has a mysterious power,
somehow it captures, shaman-like, a piece of our soul. For
those of us who are adopted, we might have many names to
choose from. For me, each of these names holds some power,
some magic which reflects my essence. And yet I know some
people who have legally changed their names more than once.
What sort of tortured souls they must be! A name is not
a pair of shoes one changes to suit a mood or circumstance.
So if we meet on the street, you can call me James and I will
respond as an adoptee sharing our journey. You can call me
Sandy and I will respond feeling the love and safety of
childhood. You can call me Alexander and I will respond from
the present, in the moment. And I hope you will call me
"friend" and take my hand and ask to journey for a while
in this lonely world I inhabit, struggling through the
rebirth of finding roots and family after so many years.
Just don't call me Al.
Alexander Inglis (July 15, 2001)
In Toronto
-- 30 --
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