How I came to have pride in my name

(Part 1 of What's in a name?'

“What’s in a name?” is woven into Juliet Capulet’s balcony scene soliloquy of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, aptly called a ‘tragedy of names.’ She comes to her window and proclaims to the heavens her love for Romeo Montague. Unaware that he’s hiding below in the shadows, Juliet offers herself to him body and soul -- only, he must cast off his last name. It’s not like she’s asking her paramour to remove a limb, she reasons. Besides that, she herself already had offered to excise her own surname. Most of all, by Juliet’s take, a Romeo sans Montague retains his essential self – one that, to her, is a most dear and perfect one.

This question of Shakespeare’s not only captivated me at a young age, but shaped my sensibility and sensitivity towards people’s names, and over time played an outsize role in discovering and steering my worldly aspirations. It all began in elementary school, when I learned what’s in store when you have the same first and last name. At the start of 4^th grade in northern Virginia, where my family had just moved, I was teased mercilessly at the outset of the school year. “Philip Phillips, Philip Phillips,” several boys would chant at lunch break or recess. I importuned that my full name was Philip Christopher Phillips – I have always loved the sound of my full name - and that I mostly went by Christopher. Made no difference. “Philip Phillips” was their mantra.