I got a picture from my 4 1/2 year-old daughter that she drew recently. I asked her what she called it and she gave it a name, but I won't post it.
Below it is a picture I drew well before she was born, which does not have a name.
Both pictures were drawn with black pen.
Note the particular use of lines in each.

Sid viciousi and Johnny rotteni

Since we talked about Adam naming creatures in our discussion last week I thought I'd share this. Pretty entertaining. It almost makes me want to discover something just so I can name it. Now that's power!

Click on the image for the link.

Zodiac, Unabomber, Adam & Eve

Fitting with recent discussion of the rectification of names, I enjoyed this article about why police give nicknames to criminals of unknown identity. The interesting part is that the article claims the act of giving a criminal a name serves to "plant mental images of the suspects in the minds of patrol officers and the public, improving the odds of spotting and catching the crooks."

This is something of a different take on names. Instead of things having one proper name that must be discovered, rather it pits named vs. unnamed things, as if something without a name is somehow less real than something named. This brings to mind a post from last October on my friend Ben's blog, entitled "A name by any other rose." Incidentally, he and I are working on a new project together, and the name was the first thing we came up with after the basic concept.

But perhaps this isn't really so far off from Confucius. In both interpretations of the significance of names, there is a strong connection between name and identity. Confucius says if you know the true name, you can truly understand the thing. And when cops give a name to an unknown criminal, they are giving him an identity, and in a way creating him.

And all of this reminds me of the Judeo-Christian doctrine that as first man on earth, Adam named everything. From KJV Genesis 19-20: And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. But it also sounds like Adam named Eve. After God takes the rib and creates woman, he brings the woman to Adam (just like it says he did with all the animals). KJV Genesis 3:20 says, And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Compare that with Moses 4:26, from the LDS Pearl of Great Price: And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of allliving; for thus have I, the Lord God, called the first of all women, which are many.

In the PoGP version it sounds like God came up with the name, but even the straight biblical account has some ambiguity--it says he "called" not "named" her Eve. So was Adam told the name, or did he divine the "correct" name through inspiration? And if the latter, did Adam really name anything, or was he revealing the proper names of things?

Discuss.

[Criminal nickname article found via The Lexicographer's Rules]

Name Voyager

If you're interested in names, you'll enjoy the Name Voyager, I promise. Even if you have no impending need to select a baby name. (Me, I do. Baby girl ETA December 5th.)

Basically, it's a little flash application that graphs the popularity of a given name that you enter, by decade, based on U.S. Social Security data. There are other sites that do this, but the execution of Name Voyager makes it fun to use. It shows you all names which match the pattern you type. So if you type "Joseph" you'll see the stats for both Joseph and Josephine, and you get to watch the graphs rise and fall like so many ill-fated civilizations as you type every letter. It's quite diverting.

A few examples of what I learned from typing random things on Name Voyager:

• Orange was the 970th most common name in the 1890s, but Apple doesn't show up in the top 1000 in any decade (Gwyneth Paltrow probably checked).
• Frank seems, frankly, headed for extinction.
• Names whose heyday came and went in the mid-20th century: Stuart, Barry, Nancy, Janice.
• A name that didn't survive World War II: Archibald.
• A name that didn't survive the Spanish-American War: Horatio.
• Norma and Stephanie have steadily been more popular (although sometimes only slightly so) than their respective counterparts Norman and Stephen.
  

Names really are a language of their own. Not that it makes it any easier for my wife and I to pick one.