Namely Marly

Obama, speaking to astronauts  on the space station tells them how everyone back home is excited about the bay window of the space station that they’re opening up and adds that Stephen Colbert is excited about his new treadmill.  Colbert commented “Yes, I am! Yes I am! But not quite as excited as having the most powerful man in the world saying my name…in space!”

I had a guest post recently by Larry Ackerman, who wrote about his use of the name Larry instead of Laurence. It was an intriguing idea – how, when you have a name that is easily reduced to a nickname (such as Larry), it is oftentimes bestowed upon you with or without your blessing. Most people eventually come to a point where they accept it.

So you can imagine my interest in a recent podcast  of the Adam Carolla show where he interviewed Laurence Fishburne and they actually talked about names! Laurence Fishburne has another one of my favorite kind of name change stories: He actually reclaimed his name. This is similar to Barack Obama, who decided in his early 20′s to discontinue the use of his life-long nickname, Barry, carried down from his father. Laurence Fishburne reveals in the interview with Adam Carolla that some people gave him a hard time about the change, but he stuck with it, and Laurence is who he is now. Below is an excerpt of the interview between Laurence and Adam where they’re talking about names. Or you can listen to the entire Adam Carolla podcast with interviews of selected cast from the movie, Armored.

Excerpt of Adam Carolla interviewing Laurence Fishburne (12.4.09)

AC: Don’t you hate it when people do that thing where they go, “Oh, here today gone tomorrow” or “This business. They give it to you and they take it away.” You’re skilled. That’s why you’re working.

LF: Well, thank you. I’m blessed. I have been blessed with talent. I have tried to take care of it. I have tried to take what I do seriously, but I don’t take my self seriously. I think people kind of confuse the idea that because I play serious people that I take myself seriously and I don’t. I mean, I used to be called Larry and now I’m called Laurence. And I think some people were like, “Well, what’s the mater with Larry?”  Larry’s just not my name anymore and it doesn’t feel like me.

AC: Plus, Larry the Cable Guy f-ed that up for everyone named Larry. There should be a class action lawsuit for guys named Larry; that fat hillbilly screwing your name up.

LF: Right? He’s a funny dude though, man.

AC: Yeah, but historically, Larry Tate, Larry the Cable Guy. There’s been a lot of bad Larry’s out there.

LF: Yeah, there’s been a lot of bad Larry’s out there

AC: Of course, there’s Laurence of Arabia.

LF: Yeah, there’s Laurence of Arabia. There’s Laurence Olivier. There’s Laurence Fishburne.

AC:  There’s a million good Laurences and a lot of shitty Larry’s. So I’d go with Laurence too. I might change my name to Laurence.

LF: You think? Laurence Carolla?

AC: I think I might get some work if I was Laurence Carolla!

LF: I don’t know. You look more like a Lancelot to me.

AC: Lancelot Carolla. Who is starring in that Harvey Korman film. Lancelot Carolla.

LF: You’ve got the eyebrows. You’ve got the hair. You’ve got a kind of a Lancelot feel to you.

AC: I like that.

LF: I do too.

AC: Lancelot

LF: Can we get him a lance?

AC: Lancelot Olivier Carolla.

LF: That’s what I’m talking about!

AC: I could WORK with that name!

LF: That flows. It’s poetry.

AC: Listen! I think there is a lot to the names! You know, god bless Minnie Driver, but if her name was Fran Hershberg, I don’t think she’d be working as much. People like her name. I think people like Minnie Driver.

LF: She’s got a great name. Minnie’s got a grace face and is a really, really gifted woman.

AC: I know.There’s a lot of good actresses out there. I just feel like that name…it just pushes her over the top.

LF: It does. Because she’s Minnie and she’s like Amazonian in size.

AC: Yeah. It’s ironic. It’s like calling a fat guy Stretch.

If you doubt the impact that changing a name can have on a life, consider Barack Obama. Yes, it’s true that his given name at birth was Barack. So how, you may ask, did he change his name?

When he was a child everyone referred to him as Barry, the same derivative of Barack that his father chose. The story goes that his father chose a nickname just as a lot of people from other countries do when trying to fit into this culture. It seemed only natural then, that Barack who was given the same name as his father, would use the same nickname.

It appears that Barack took comfort in the name Barry. A black boy growing up in Hawaii with a white mother and grandparents would want to fit in somehow. A Newsweek article on Barack’s name shows that when questioned about the nickname, he described, how “he didn’t want to have to explain his name. ‘Barry’ was just a way of simplifying things—a small compromise to smooth the way in society.”

He continued to go by Barry until his early twenties. In college his struggle transformed from trying to fit in to trying to find himself. Friends encouraged him to claim his heritage and go by Barack. I can imagine how that must have resonated with him.  How better to stake a claim for new territory than putting up a flag that labels who owns the property. A name is like the flag testifying who lives here; who owns this life!

You may still think that changing a name from a nickname to a birthname is not technically a name change. But I would argue that it requires the same steps. It requires courage to ask people to call you something different. It’s why there can be comfort in being around new people where you can call yourself what you want. It’s when you’re around people who have known you for years that it’s difficult. People don’t like change. They don’t like it for themselves and they don’t like it for those they love.

Asking people begin to call him Barack wasn’t always easy. Some members of his family insisted on calling him Barry. Through the years he must have won this battle. I think he is a better person for figuring out who he is and how he would be named. Larry Ackerman describes one problem with politics: the expectation to try to be someone you’re not. Maybe having gone through this this process of figuring out who he really is can help him be an authentic leader. I also think the name Barack suits him much better. We all would be better served for this opportunity. To be self reflective. To consider our identity. To choose how we will be named.