STEVEN KALAS My name is Steven. It's Greek -- stavros = "crown" -- though I'm mostly Saxon with a little tweener of McDaniel Scot thrown in for good measure. Names matter. Names have power. Names are big medicine. By the time we're in preschool, we know there is no more efficient and sure method for degrading people than by degrading their names. Conversely, there are few more efficient and sure methods for conveying respect than to inquire after a person's name -- to use it, to remember it, to pronounce it correctly. We live in a world of instant nicknames and presumed familiarities. In this culture of instant intimacy, we afford ourselves the presumption of inventing nicknames and endearments for people we barely know. We tell ourselves we're being friendly and warm and hospitable when we do this, but I wonder. "What's your name?" asks the car salesman. "Steven," I answer. "Hey, Steeverino!" the salesman exclaims. "Close, but it's pronounced Stee-vuhn, with the accent on the first syllable," I say. Steeverino is more like the name of a dry cleaners, or a carwash, or of a process for removing fabric stains. "Don't worry, ma'am, we'll just run this through the Steeverino and it should be fine." "What's your name?" people ask. "Steven," I answer. "Steve, it's nice to meet you," they say. And it's all I can do not to interrupt right then and there and say: "Pardon me, but if you were just gonna make up a name for me anyway, why'd you ask? I mean, why didn't you just say, 'Hello, Mitch' or 'Hello, Barbara'?" "Hi, Steve," people greet me. "Just curious," I want to say, "but of all the arbitrary places to suddenly stop saying my name, why'd you pick between the e and the n? I mean, why didn't you say Stev, or Ste, or St, or Ssssss?" Names matter. There's no such thing as "just a name." Names don't merely represent identity; names participate in our identity. In some sense, names contain our identity. Which is why people sometimes change their names. When our identity moves through a time of profound transformation, sometimes our old name no longer fits. More than once I've known people who have completed a rigorous course of psychotherapy and then punctuated that work by changing their name. Now they are someone else. It happens in religion, too. Both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures are replete with folks who, once they meet God, are so transformed that their old names can no longer contain their new identity. Abram becomes Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. Simon becomes Peter. Saul becomes Paul. Islam, too. Lew Alcindor was a great college basketball player. But it's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who owns the professional scoring record. Two different names. Two different men. If you tell me your name, you surrender some degree of power to me. With that power I actually can make you physically turn around. All I have to do is walk up behind you and call your name. If you know my name, but I don't know yours, you will have a kind of power over me, which, where I come from, is a breach of decorum. The ever-polite English would say it this way: "Sir, you have me at a disadvantage." Translation: "Hey, mind your manners! Introduce yourself before you go on jabbering at me like we're old friends! It's disrespectful to bandy my name about while you remain disguised in anonymity!" When I hear the name "Steve," I'm not insulted. I don't get my feelings hurt. I won't even move to correct you. But in my heart I will quietly register the fact that you don't know me. And if you intend to hang around in my space for any length of time, it is my hope that you would want to know me. To respect me. Truth is, "Steve" is the name of a boy I once was. Embarrassingly enough, I was mostly that boy well into my 30s. Then life, love, fatherhood and other such realities dragged me off and grew me up. Steve is the boy. Steven is the man -- both the man I am and the man that I hope to become. "Do you prefer Steve or Steven?" asks my new colleague. "Steven," I say. "And thanks for asking." | 
