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A name “is like an elongated shadow attached at our heels,” Himes writes (p. 127). How does one's name guide the course of one's life? The author's father and siblings legally altered the family name making Heimovitch into Himes and questions surrounding the motivation for this change led to the personal journey of writing this book. The monograph is divided into two parts: the first “Called into Existence,” followed by “Burden or Blessing,” both passionately probing the ground between self and moniker. The fact that a name is first given by others external to the subject and is, secondly, internalized has profound implications, claims Himes, a psychoanalyst in Toronto, making nomenclature both a gift and a curse.
The author details how our name, both first and last, defines us in relationship to those who have given it and to patriarchal structures of kinship. How does precedence of the paternal surname over the maternal impact a female's sense of authority and voice? Surnames often announce ethnic affiliations, revealing cultural roots and geographic origins. One crucial aspect of being Jewish, states Himes, is being linked to a sequence of historical events spanning over 5,000 years and ties to an ancient community of Mesopotamian desert wanderers—nomads who only had the law (nomas in Latin) and the name (nomen), the two being inextricably intertwined. With few possessions and a primary concern for survival, the word and law of the Torah became paramount, its inscribed values and moral codes. At the same time, Himes suggests one's ancestry and intergenerational past can be “a prison from which we wish to escape” (p. 169).
The book has expansive historical reach, examining naming practices in relation to the contemporary mononyms of pop culture icons such as Cher, Sting, and Christo and extending to the writings of Plato and early totemic rituals surrounding the murder of the primal father. Himes cites the Roman proverb nomen est omen: the name is destiny, a common