What’s in a name?

You may have never spoken the well-known phrase, “What’s in a name?” precisely but you’ve probably thought it or muttered something close to it.

Perhaps it was when your teenager wanted the latest — and expensive — Nike shoes. You suggested a different, much cheaper option, only for your teen to retort: “But it doesn’t have the Nike swoosh on it!” You may have responded, or thought, “What’s in a brand?”

You were borrowing from that famed line, “What’s in a name?”

From my understanding, that line comes from one out of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

What’s in a name?

Perhaps not much, if you get it wrong like some teachers did in rather magnificent fashion, as Luanne Oleas recorded for Reader’s Digest:

When the 1960s ended, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district reverted to high rent, and many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. They had children and got married, too, though in no particular sequence. But they didn’t name their children Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing Frisbee with little Time Warp or Spring Fever. And eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love and Precious Promise all ended up in public school.

That’s when the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand. Every fall, according to tradition, parents bravely apply name tags to their children, kiss them good-bye, and send them off to school on the bus. So it was for Fruit Stand. The teachers thought the boy’s name was odd, but they tried to make the best of it.

“Would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand?” they offered. And later, “Fruit Stand, how about a snack?” He accepted hesitantly. By the end of the day, his name didn’t seem much odder than Heather’s or Sun Ray’s.

At dismissal time, the teachers led the children out to the buses. “Fruit Stand, do you know which one is your bus?”

He didn’t answer. That wasn’t strange. He hadn’t answered them all day. Lots of children are shy on the first day of school. It didn’t matter. The teachers had instructed the parents to write the names of their children’s bus stops on the reverse side of their name tags. The teacher simply turned over the tag. There, neatly printed, was the word “Anthony.”

What’s in a name?

Perhaps a great deal when you’re the Word becoming flesh:

“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” Isaiah 9:6.

That is who was born that first Christmas, and that is why we celebrate.

Scotty