1. The Rhetoric of Naming Connotation Denotation
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
William Shakespeare
Connotation
Denotation

2. In their book Freakonomics, researchers Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J
In their book Freakonomics, researchers Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner make the claim that your name does not affect your destiny. In April 2013, they participated in a podcast to revisit the idea of naming in “How Much Does Your Name Matter?”
“Baby names while at first glance may seem like a relatively frivolous kind of concept, they’re incredibly powerful indicators of status, of aspiration, of taste and identity.”

3. Key Points of studies done about names
Information from: We Believe People With Easy-to-Pronounce Names, Says Science
By Lilit Marcus, Shine Contributor | Parenting – Fri, May 2, :01 PM EDT
Key Points of studies done about names
“The results from these experiments showed that people with easier to pronounce names were judged as more familiar, less risky and less dangerous than individuals with difficult to pronounce names.”
Immigrants who "Americanized" their names were more likely to get jobs than ones who opted not to. They also ended up making more money.
Female attorneys in South Carolina were more likely to win judgeships if they had a gender-neutral or ambiguous name like Terry or Kelly than if they had a more traditionally feminine ones like Susan or Laurie.
***Want to see how your name has trended over time? Visit:

4. CLICK
The first episode of Bravo's newest reality show, Pregnant in Heels, served up a first look at what happens when the uber rich get pregnant ... and turn to pregnancy concierge Rosie Pope to help them prep. Enter branding expert Samantha Ettus and husband Mitch Jacobs, founder and CEO of a business capital firm. They want to brand their baby.

5. The couple named their little boy…. 
Bowen Asher Jacobs

6. Blue Ivy
Good Morning America: Ivy is a play on the Roman numeral IV. The number four is significant to the power couple -- they married on April 4th, (4/4), both of their birthdays are on the 4th (September and December), and Beyonce's fourth studio album was called "4."
Naming expert Pamela Satran: "Ivy, a symbol of fertility, is an old-fashioned name enjoying a resurgence…It's just cracked the Top 300 for the first time since the 1890s, making it a stylish steampunk choice."
Naming expert Linda Rosenkrankrantz: There was a jazz singer Ivy (aka Ivie) Anderson who sang with Duke Ellington. Do Beyonce and Jay-Z know her? "Uncertain. But when I heard the name Blue I did think of Billie Holiday and Lady Sings the Blues," said Satran.
Satran: "Blue is one of the new color names that's been most enthusiastically embraced by celebrities, sometimes spelled the French way, Bleu, which might have been expected for Beyonce whose own name along with sister Solange's has French origins."

7. North West Kardashian gave birth to a healthy baby girl on
Saturday, June 15, 2013… Name expert and author
Laura Wattenberg said, "Direction names are uncommon in general, and almost always male. North is the second most common direction name for boys, after West. North doesn't have a traditionally name-like sound for either girls or boys, but parents have generally placed directions on the boys' side, just as seasons (Summer, Autumn, even Winter) have gone to the girls."
Well, if you combine Kim Noel Kardashian and Kanye Omari West's middle names, you get "Nori.“ (PORTMANTEAU!!!)

8. GEORGE LOUIS ALEXANDER
“Royals tend to choose dynastic names, names with history and tradition … it has to be something of weight and gravitas,” [royal expert Victoria] Arbiter says.
The third in line to the throne is believed to be named for his great-great-grandfather George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth II. Louis is possibly derived from Prince Philip's uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, with whom Prince Charles had a close relationship and
the last British Viceroy of India before independence
in 1947.
Alexander could be a reference to old Kings of Scotland
and it's also the male version of Alexandra, the queen's
middle name...
AND

9. What about YOU?!
Read the Sandra Cisneros piece “My Name” excerpted from her book The House on Mango Street, a collection of intertwined stories about a young Mexican-American girl who, much like Cisneros, grew up in a poor, working-class area of Chicago. Also, read Firoozeh Dumas’ “The ‘F-Word’” excerpted from her nonfiction memoir Funny in Farsi; born in Iran, later moving to America, she writes about her cultural heritage and assimilation into American society.
Note the devices of comparison (simile/metaphor) in Cisneros’ first paragraph as well as in Dumas’ third paragraph. To what effect are they employed?
Compare/contrast the authors’ tone towards their own names. How is the tone developed? Select specific textual support.
Consider the idea of re-naming (and hence identity)
both women explore.

10. Sandra Cisneros-”My Name” excerpted from The House on Mango Street
In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.
It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horsewoman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse- which is supposed to be bad luck if you’re born female- but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans don’t like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn’t marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that. As if she were a fancy chandelier. That’s the way he did it.
And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window. At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish, my name is made out of something softer something like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name—Magdalena—which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who can at least come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza.
I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lasiandra or Martiza or ZeZe the X. Yes. Something like ZeZe the X will do.

11. “The ‘F Word’” excerpted from Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas (2004)
  My cousin’s name, Farbod, means “Greatness.” When he moved to America, all the kids called him “Farthead.” My brother Farshid (“He Who Enlightens”) became “Fartshit.” The name of my friend Neggar means “Beloved,” although it can be more accurately translated as “She Whose Name Almost Incites Riots.” Her brother Arash (“Giver”) initially couldn’t understand why every time he’d say his name, people would laugh and ask him if it itched.
All of us immigrants knew that moving to America would be fraught with challenges, but none of us thought that our names would be such an obstacle. How could our parents have ever imagined that someday we would end up in a country where monosyllabic names reign supreme, a land where “William” is shortened to “Bill,” where “Susan” becomes “Sue,” and “Richard” somehow evolves into “Dick”? America is a great country, but nobody without a mask and a cape has a z in his name. And have Americans ever realized the great scope of the guttural sounds they’re missing? Okay, so it has to do with linguistic roots, but I do believe this would be a richer country if all Americans could do a little tongue aerobics and learn to pronounce “kh,” a sound more commonly associated in this culture with phlegm, or “gh,” the sound usually made by actors in the final moments of a choking scene. It’s like adding a few spices to the kitchen pantry. Move over, cinnamon and nutmeg, make way for cardamom and sumac.
Exotic analogies aside, having a foreign name in this land of Joes and Marys is a pain in the spice cabinet. When I was twelve, I decided to simplify my life by adding an American middle name. This decision serves as proof that sometimes simplifying one’s life in the short run only complicates it in the long run.
My name, Firoozeh, chosen by my mother, means “Turquoise” in Farsi. In America, it means “Unpronounceable” or “I’m Not Going to Talk to You Because I Cannot Possibly Learn Your Name and I Just Don’t Want to Have to Ask You Again and Again Because You’ll Think I’m Dumb or You Might Get Upset or Something.” My father, incidentally, had wanted to name me Sara. I do wish he had won that argument.

12. Your Turn! Look up the origin of your name.
2. Ask someone close to you about why your name was chosen just for you.
3. Check the trending site: (
3. Imitating Cisneros’ or Dumas’ opening style (see next slides for models), construct a piece about your name (about ¾ of a page to one page, paragraphed as you see fit).

13. What does the name mean? (denotation, hint at connotation)
Model-Cisneros piece
STRUCTURE
YOUR NAME
Grabber:
What does the name mean? (denotation, hint at connotation)
Colleen means “girl” in Gaelic. Born on the 6th day of the 6th month, Colleen, with a double “l” and double “e,” means multiplicity.
Simile:
The name is like…
It is like two sides of a coin.
Metaphor:
The name is…
It is the moon, at once both halved and full.
Keep going!
What do you want to share about your name? It’s history? It’s connotation? Your tone toward it?

14. Family naming patterns (denotation, hint at connotation)
Model-Dumas piece
STRUCTURE
YOUR NAME
Grabber:
Family naming patterns (denotation, hint at connotation)
My dad is named Raymond and so is my brother. To avoid confusion whenever my mom called for one of them, my brother was rebranded as Ray-Ray. Noreen, my mother, chose the name Colleen for me. Our family of doubles and rhymes is a menagerie of poetic devices run amok. OR
My mother is named Patricia but is called by her middle name of Noreen. Her brother Martin answers to his middle, John. Baby of the family Timarie is officially named Ann. So why, in a family of backwards Irish names am I called—chronologically—Colleen?
Keep going!
What do you want to share about your name? It’s history? It’s connotation? Your tone toward it?