“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.”

That reference is of course a line written by William Shakespeare from the play Romeo and Juliet to convey that the naming of things is irrelevant.

But, I want to explore that. 

My friend has a theory that asking someone “how did you get your name?” is an noninvasive way to hear about their origin story and a way to learn a lot about them. It taps into past generations of humans with how we are given our names - while it is a seemingly benign question, it possibly can be an astute window into the stories we tell ourselves about our lives.

My guest for this episode, Erwin Raphael McManus, speaker & author of “Mind Shift” has a very unique name as well as backstory so I thought he’d be the perfect person to test this hypothesis. 

Throughout the episode he answers questions like…

• If your name wasn’t given with meaning, how do you bring meaning to it?
• What do you do if you don’t like your name?
• Do women lose parts of their identity in taking their husband’s name?

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