It was William Shakespeare who first posed the famed question, “what’s in a name?” According to Shakespeare, “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” However, with some consideration on the nature of names, my own included, I have come to question the validity of Shakespeare’s statement; while eloquent and thought-provoking, it does not bear weight.
Names are nouns of illimitable power. They provide others with a way to identify us, while to some extent giving us our own identity. That is not to say that names are the primary source of one’s identity, and that one’s name is a concrete guideline for the nature of a human being that bears it; each individual of the same name varies, and for one to believe that one’s name is the defining feature of a human being is simply foolish. However, names and the meanings associated with them can provide valuable insight into one’s own nature if read in the context of what one already knows of oneself.
My name is Matthew Todd Dubois. I like to called by Matt, but I have a nickname that follows me around like a stray puppy; those who I become friends with, no matter where I live, end up calling me Duby, inspired without fail by my relatively uncommon last name. However, my first name makes up for any uniqueness of my last with its commonness. Matthew was the second most common name chosen for boys in 1985, the year I was born, superseded only by the slightly more popular Michael. Consequently, I can scarcely avoid running into at least one other Matt in any social setting I encounter. All through school, it was a rarity to find a single class in which there was no other Matt, out of all nine classes during a day. I quickly became used to this trend, and have all but ceased to notice it.
However, in spite of the commonplace nature of my name, I do not feel common in any sense. On the contrary, I feel, as all must feel to some extent, a fierce devotion to my self. I feel that I am uncommonly proficient in some certain and varied areas, such as the ability to run long distances at an unfaltering pace, contrived, no doubt, from all my time spent doing so in the setting of high school cross country, as well as my time spent running through the woods of my boyhood home, reveling in the simple and unsophisticated pleasures of youth.
This diversion to the memory of the woods from my childhood leads me to another aspect of my name: its meaning. My all too common first name bears a significant meaning, obviously biblical in its origin. Matthew is derived from the Hebrew Matityah, meaning “gift from Yahweh,” which was later anglicized to Matheu and finally Matthew, meaning “gift from God.” It also implies qualities of practicality, honesty, and generosity. Again, with any name lies an attractive tendency to believe that the qualities implied by its meaning are naturally applicable to its owner; I would like to believe that I am practical, honest, and generous, and to a certain extent I do feel that these attributes describe me. However, by no means do I feel allow myself to feel that because these qualities are contained by my name, they apply to me to a greater extant than anyone else; I merely aspire to reflect my namesake.
The aforementioned woods of my childhood lead me naturally to the meaning of my surname, Dubois. As with any last name, a sense of devotion and pride is associated with it, as it is an undying link to all my ancestors, both ancient and recent. It is with this name that I can trace my lineage back, so far as my descendants who immigrated from France, and so recent as my great grandmother. As with my first name, it carries meaning; Dubois is French, and means “of the wood.” This carries two connotations, referring to either one who works with wood, such as a carpenter, or one who dwells or works in the woods. To me, this implies that in times past, earlier generations of Dubois’ were woodcutters or carpenters, and earned their surname from their trade, as was largely the custom for European cultures.
However, for me there is a different, more personal meaning associated with the name. The name Dubois suggests a very natural, earthy, sylvan feeling to me, and evokes images of the earth tones and forests, something that were an intrinsic part of my youth and upbringing. I have already mentioned the sheer bulk of time I spent in the woods as a boy, running and leaping through the trees and thickets like some forest creature, at times even pretending to be one, or something else, usually a brave knight from the world of King Arthur and Camelot. Thus, for me (and one’s name always bears the most significance for oneself), my last name holds more meaning than its simple translation; apart from the connotation of family ties held by one’s surname there can also be found a personal attachment.
The idea of one’s name tying one into one’s own family leads me to the one aspect of my name that I have not yet addressed, my middle name. This name goes beyond the simple familial link created by my last name; my middle name, Todd, was bestowed upon me at the time when my father’s brother, Todd, was seriously ill with leukemia. It was unsure that he could recover, and in an effort to immortalize him in some manner, my parents made my middle name his first. Fortunately, he recovered. However, the name stuck and I bear it still, a silent reminder of the near loss of a brother and uncle.
This concept of immortalization through one’s name is an interesting one to me. To some extent, one can truly find immortality through memory: some may live on in legend through collective memory. To simply utter the names, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, or John F. Kennedy is to invoke varied and complex reactions. The one commonality between them is that they all do invoke some recognition; their names survive the test of time to continue to carry a sense of who their owners were, and what they did. This concept operates on a smaller, more common scale as well, through naming one’s son after oneself, and adding the suffix, Junior. In this way, one can hope to achieve some sense of continued existence through ones son.
While varied in origin and meaning in its parts, my name, Matthew Todd Dubois, identifies me, both to myself and to others. It reflects my character, but doesn’t define it, while tying me to my heritage. While it doesn’t define who I feel that I am, it does relate strongly, especially through my surname, to my sense of self. Whether through coincidence or through some deeper medium of which I have no understanding, my name truly does carry deep significance to me in divining who I am, was, and wish to be. A rose by any other name would perhaps smell as sweet, but nothing like the roses that I have come to know.
