We simplify identity in crude ways. A woman takes her man’s name when they marry. Or she doesn’t, in which case she keeps her father’s name. Unless she’s Madonna or Beyoncé. Or there are other feminist solutions. At NCVO I worked with Susan Elizabeth. But I also worked there with Perri 6. He went on to work for Demos where he delighted the pundits who put him to scorn for his postmodern name tag. I only complained that it was hell to reference his publications – and convince sub-editors - a problem that people still have, as there is a a Yahoo query even now (‘I am trying to reference an article for a student and Dr Perri 6 keeps coming up - is it some kind of acronym?’), even when he is Professor of Social Policy at Nottingham Trent University.
My father was baptised Edward Robert Cecil: half the family called him Bob and the other half, Peter. But he also changed his family name, so that our name has association of a Devon village with a notoriously progressive school and also a renowned music school. And then Michael Young took the name Lord Young of Dartington.
What is it about these changes of name? The intention may be integrative but temporary – like Chinese students who take English names to make it easier for others, - accidental, like American immigrants who were renamed by clerks mishearing foreign sounds – or deliberate, like my father wanting a good-sounding name for a headmaster. Or those taking the name Windsor as good for a royal family.
In these last examples, is there an element of shame in wanting to get rid of a foreign sounding name?
There are other motivations. Those entering the religious life take new names. Sometimes the change is linked to status, bishops for example, or the Pope. As I have said, taking a peerage is also an opportunity for a makeover.
Tamil guerrillas take new names, and their ‘real’ names are only revealed when they are dead. And long before Perri, soldiers were known by their numbers.