If you think about it, when you give something a name, it seems more real. It comes alive, in a sense. As soon as you name a baby, it becomes more of a person than when you just refer to it as “it.” When you give someone a nickname, you are, in a sense, creating a relationship with that person. As soon as a name is given to something, it exists.I’ve been trying to get back into this world that I created a while back, called Ortygia. It’s a story I created back in high school, and when it first started, it was a love story (of course). What else was I going to write about in high school. Years later, when I reread the whole thing, I began to understand how absurd it all was. And I knew that I had to revise everything.

Except the name. Ortygia. There’s something magical about that name. I have this whole world created in my imagination, and yet I can’t get it onto paper. But because I have named it, it is alive. And it is mine.

I was thinking about names today and how when we create something, it doesn’t seem as real until there is a name associated with it. In business, if you’re working on a project, the project has to have a name. Otherwise, it’s just an idea. It’s some thought that someone had, but it’s not real.

Names are the essence of a thing. When we think of people, their names are the first things we think of, and people feel strongly about their names. Some people are happy with their names, others change them. If you follow numerology, names make us who we are. They tell us what our potential is, and what our future will be. If you give something the wrong name, the project or person with that name may not be all they can be.

I guess I’ve been thinking about this because I’m about to create a new project, and I’m trying to come up with a great name. It seems I’m always trying to come up with an interesting name for something. I already have names picked out for our second child and there’s no baby in sight (yet). I’m all about original, unique names. Something that will stand out and be memorable.

This also can pertain to physical places on a map as well. Until something has a name, it is just land, with people on it. Once it has a name, it is a town, or city, or even a country. Names create associations, and relationships, emotions, feelings. Names bring things to life in a weird way.