“What’s her name?” It’s the first thing any kid wants to know about anyone they meet, human or otherwise. “What’s his name?” When I took my Girl Scouts horseback riding, it was the first question they’d ask when introduced to their mounts, and until it was answered, all the other details of riding weren’t of much interest.
Names have power. Until something is named, for a child, it isn’t quite real. But after it’s named, it’s a friend. There’s a connection.
When meeting wildlife at places like the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, I was always told the animals there didn’t have names, because they were wild, not tame. Later I came to understand that many of the long-term animal ambassadors at such places did have names that were used by their keepers, but that those names weren’t shared with the public, because giving the public names would encourage them to think of wild animals as pets rather than as representatives of species that weren’t domesticated and that did need to be free.
Recently I’ve been told there’s a trend towards revealing wildlife animal names after all, though, because it turns out adults aren’t that different from children after all: if we know something’s name, we’re able to care about it, and if we care about it, we’re more willing to work to protect it.
The Desert Museum’s succession of iconic mountain lions always did have names, as far as I know–all of the male lions, at least, were known as “George L. Mountainlion.” When the latest George L. Mountainlion (what does the “L” stand for, I wonder?) retired, though, the museum decided a new name was needed for the cub who replaced him, and a naming contest was held.
By pure accident, we wound up visiting the Desert Museum last Saturday night when the new name was announced. For those of you who haven’t seen him yet, this is Cruz.
About half an hour after Cruz’s new name was announced, we watched him cross the rocks of his enclosure in the desert twilight. He’s a half-sized mountain lion these days, still with a sort of baby cuteness (or maybe that’s us humans projecting). As he moved through his enclosure, people ooohed and aaaahed, as people do.
“Awwwww, Cruz,” they called to him.
I thought: this mountain lion’s name is less than an hour old. Nothing about him has changed in that hour. Yet already, that name was a crucial part of how the public was thinking about him, relating to him, caring about and wanting to protect him.
There’s something both lovely and unsettling about that.
Names are powerful magic. We feel connected to the things we name. (We are.) We feel like we own the things we name. (We don’t.)
It is, I think, a tricky, tricky balance.
On a related note, this reminds me of how people will often feel relieved–even if they don’t feel happy–when a doctor can put a name on the illness they’ve been suffering.
Naming is a form of control. Which sheds interesting light on teens who change the names they use, too. Not to mention on the whole question of whether to take a spouse’s name, or name a child for a parent.