What's in your name? Just your whole world. How on earth did you get it?
- Karen Sole
- Oct 15
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Jack or Jill, Ahmed or Aysegul, Francesco or Claudia, love it or hate it, your name contains big intergenerational stories, in just a few letters or characters. Let's have a look into it.
Once upon a time my favourite ice-breaker for training sessions always evoked groans that meant ‘how boring’ to begin with. Participants slogged through treacle to form small groups. Always, within a minute or two, the room erupted in animated, deeply engaged conversation that I had to trick back to plenary. The inquiry was ‘what is the reason for, or how did you get your first name?’
My own naming story involves a degree of animosity or not getting along so well between my mother and paternal grandmother, a cousin of my father birthing a girl child days before I appeared, and the earlier child receiving the name for me that my mother had confided to my grandmother. The ‘theft’ put my mother off giving me the name she had chosen. She picked my recorded name from the book she was reading at the time. That change of mind had profound implications for me. I would have had the name, would have been Maarama, a Maori* name, which would have led to entirely different expectations from every person who read my name or interacted with me. Think especially teachers, training institute selectors, employers, and the 50s and 60s in New Zealand.
If you explored how you got your name, what would you discover? What story do you already know that you have attached no significance to? What were the influences on the choice? What tribe, or culture or language had to be included or excluded? Who had traditional rights to name you? Was the choice left to your parents or grandparents or other relatives? Was there a political event or famous person whose name was imported through you, into your family? Did your parents argue, and did one of them prevail? Who would you have been if the other parent had had their way? Why was the argument important to them? Are you named after a parent or grandparent? Are you carrying the same name as a sibling or cousin who died young? Were you adopted and did you have a name before the one you have lived your life with? Does anyone in your family system refuse to call you by your name? Has your name been anglicised or francofied (?) to make it easy for the people you live among? Are you nervous about insisting on correct pronunciation of your name, in whatever language, within whatever culture and language environment? Would you like to change your name because of its associations? Have you informally or formally changed your name? Have you changed your name to align with your trans-gender? Do you have a stage or art name or nom de plume?
There are many more questions we could ask our name, but I think you can see why those ice-breakers became a rowdy force of urgent interaction!
Here is a name story from small town 1950s New Zealand I was trailed around by a boy who waited at our at primary school dental clinic gate for me to arrive - every day, or so it seems now. There was the gate, and beside the post, a kid’s body shaped hole worn away in the escallonia hedge. There was also an ovoid furrow in the ground made by our feet, and because the lawn didn’t grow right beneath the hedge. He lived opposite the school, and probably saw me coming in time to run across to be there before me. His name is Bardia, a very un-New Zealand sounding name especially at that time. It was said that his name was a place in Egypt where his father had fought in the second world war. It turns out to be in Libya, near the border with Egypt.Wikipedia: ‘The Battle of Bardia was fought between 3 and 5 January 1941, as part of Operation Compass, the first British military operation of the Western Desert campaign of the Second World War. It was the first battle of the war in which an Australian Army formation took part…’ Also from Wikipedia ‘Bardia, also El Burdi or Bardiyah is a Mediterranean seaport in the Butnan District of eastern Libya, located near the border with Egypt.’
That is one hell of a story to be held in a child’s name and life. I want to assume that Bardia W’s father found something beautiful or admirable or delightful or sensual or awakening or simply and magnificently, something nice to eat when he was hungry in that region straddling Egypt and Libya, and not just the carnage of the battle, if indeed he was there. But who knows, now? And was he Australian, or has Wikipedia not cottoned on yet to there being NZ soldiers involved at El Burdi / Bardiyah / Bardia?
Contemporary name stories These days there are women and girls called India, daughters of hippie mothers who fled to the Ganges or New Delhi or Poona to find what was inside themselves all along. Some wonderful stories there, surely. Boys and men called Jordan. Stories, threads to pull; the father who loves the sport, who played when he was younger or who couldn’t play because he…fill in the blanks. He couldn’t because his father in turn had a poorly paid job and the son left school to work…and so on and on, until we get to the great grandfather who was enslaved. Great echoing, meaningful and impactful stories. Intergenerational working, escaping, illness, injustice, hurting, being born and dying, indelible trauma and remarkable resilience. Stories that have become legends or secrets. All contained in a name.
These are stories that can conceivably be uncovered by questioning living relatives, thereby shedding light on the remarkable ordinary people of our lineages. If we want to go beyond language, to find what is recorded in our DNA, the stories our bodies literally hold in our cells, to uncover secrets, get the aha that helps to clarify who you are, who and where you come from systemic/family constellations is a gentle but not unemotional way to surrender to the unthought known, or unsuspected truth of our ancestors, whether living or long since gone. I am still discovering or waking up to, or finally seeing events and relational factors in my lineages, and in my family of origin, now just four remaining out of six siblings. I can say that family constellations for me, is a great way to feel my DNA tremble with recognition!
’Tis but thy name that is mine enemy: What’s Montague? It is not hand nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part. What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Karen Sole
* On my father’s side, my iwi is Ngati Ruanui / my paternal tribe is Ngati Ruanui
The workshop below is available by securing your place with a $50 deposit, balance payable 24 November, or paying the full amount up front. Just click book now to go to the options.
www.manawafamilyconstellations.com Chat, book sessions
manawa = heart breath emotion
karensole@manawafamilyconstellations.com drop a line to arrange a workable time
Karen Sole is a member of the International Institute for Complementary Therapists, and of the International Systemic Constellations Association (isca-network.org), and a former member of ANZCI, the Aotearoa New Zealand Constellation Incorporated. She took her first training from Yildiz Sethi yildizsethi.com of familyconstellations.com.au. Karen’s profile can be found on the above organisational sites. She participates in monthly professional supervision, facilitator member constellations of ANZCI, ISCA, and informal international groups of experienced credentialed facilitators. From 01 October 2025 to 30 September 2026 she is a member of CI Connect, ‘a safe space to connect to self and others through compassionate sexf-inquiryand the exploration of our shared humanity in today’s world’ with Dr Gabor Mate and Sat Dharam Kaur ND and CI Facilitators.
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