As Shakespeare first pinned the question, “What’s in a name, that which we call a rose? By any other name would smell as sweet.” 

Expecting parents spend months carefully contemplating their child’s first and middle names, making sure to consider each one’s uniqueness, meaning and poetic nature. After all, it is a decision that will define someone for the rest of their life. Every first interaction is judged by the letters that once emerged into existence somewhere in your parents’ heads. We put so much emphasis on names, but aren’t they truly just the string of sounds and syllables that people use to get someone’s attention? 

Our world has contended that names carry much more meaning to everyone they meet, for the entirety of our lives and even longer.

My name is Kate Elise McCartney. Kate is not short for anything, contrary to the first question I am always asked upon introducing myself. It also does not have any special story for why my parents named me it, but solely because they both “have always liked Kate.” They also wanted my name to be something simple, that I rarely ever had to spell out or repeat for anyone. Coincidentally, Kate means “pure” which coincides with the Christian household I was raised in based on modesty and amiability. These are values that have become a part of my identity, first conceived through my name.

Elise, my middle name, also has no significant reasoning behind it, besides my parents’ opinion that it is pretty and goes well with my first name. In the heat of the moment though, my middle name was almost “Reagan.” June 10, 2004 was an exciting day for my family, but not for many families in the U.S. The funeral for 40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan occurred that day, someone my parents held in high regard. Though eventually they settled on Elise, I still received a unique “almost” story to share about my middle name.

Although my parents did not choose our last name, McCartney, it not only influenced the choices of my first and middle name, but has given my conversations some interesting starts over the years. No, I am not related to Paul McCartney, the former member of the Beatles (although I got so tired of telling people this throughout middle school, that I just started saying he was my uncle). McCartney has Irish roots, which is a great excuse for a future trip to Ireland with my family, where I could maybe discover more about my ancestry. Though McCartney is not likely to always be at the end of my name, I will have always carried it with me for some portion of my life.

While our names might not seem like such a monumental factor in the overarching scheme of our identities, they mark and shape the interactions, connections and conversations we are involved in. Names define portions of our lives, in who we are and what we stand for.