What's in a name?

In my heritage classes I always ask the children their name. Most recently one little girl, gave me her full name, followed by her parents names and where she was from. The rest of the class laughed but I thanked her as she had brought me nicely into my next segment that 1000 years ago in Ireland we didn't have surnames. There's no youtube video of our ancestors introducing themselves, so it's impossible to know for sure. What most people agree on these days is that it was the Normans who introduced the concept of surnames(as we know them today) to Ireland. In my classes we try out different ways of introduce ourselves like our ancestors may have done, without surnames but family names and ancestry line- for example, the girls introduce themselves as Niamh daughter of Rose, daughter of Kathleen, daughter of Roseanne, and keep going as far back as they can. The boys may have given the paternal ancestry line. How far back can you go? This used to be a sign of education, that you could list your family genealogy. This coupled with where you were from would give the other person the full picture of who you are, they would know the stories associated with your family-the good, the bad etc. Our names today do not reveal so much of our family history or about where we've been. Our names now play a role in a very confusing legal system. Our names are not rooted in place and community any more. They are most likely attached to a number and it is this number that gives your information to the questioner, but it is only the system that established the number that can have the full understanding.They want to know about your financial lineage as opposed to cultural and family events.

Of course names still have personal meanings to us but in the broader sense of culture, how we name ourselves and how we let our names be used has a huge impact on how we structure ourselves as a society and in turn our collective identity. Names like identity have to change over time, the baby name your parents used may not be appropriate for your grown up self. You may have had a nickname in your teenage years that stuck.

When I was in school, years ago, teachers would make up Irish names for those of us with English surnames or first names. My maiden name of Eustace- got changed regularly into Eustach (pronounced ewestash!) this was completely made up. similarly many Irish names and words have been made into English by a process of welding English words onto Irish words or taking an Irish word and finding an English word that sounds similar and simply changing it.

I'm an Irish person learning Irish as a second language, it is a deep hurt that I cannot speak my mother tongue fluently. It is indicative of our society and how much we had to bend that we made an English name for ourselves and they we use this name to describe who we are to the rest of the world. I'm not anti any culture, I celebrate diversity in my own country--it's just that we haven't been ourselves for a very long time now and it is so important to know who you are----this goes for countries as well. We have a choice to how we name ourselves. I'm trying to understand our national identity, sometimes I feel as if we're a country that doesn't realise it's actually free to make it's own choices and decisions, we were oppressed for so long( I know I know, don't mention the war.......but maybe our past traumas need to be spoken about and discussed, knowing that they are in the past and we are not trying to resurface the old tensions but become a proud and free people) that we are still displaying signs of that long learned behavior.

Ireland is a made up Irish into English word-what does that say about our identity?......... not a judgement, just a question, a place to look from or at for awhile, would we want to change our name, if we did, would we go back to Eire, which is still used at times, or what if we could choose our own name---could we do it as a country?

Grá
Niamh