I want to hear my name.

On the crisis of identity and what we can do.

About a month before I graduated college, I invited my then high school senior brother to my school to show him around. Of course I was excited for him to meet my friends and see the ol’ stomping grounds but something I was surprised by was how much I genuinely enjoyed introducing my brother to professors and friends as “my brother”. And when I heard him refer to me as his sister, my heart grew all the more.

He was seventeen years old so there is a huge chance that he could’ve cared less what he called me. That he was referring to me as his sister because that’s what I am. I am a sister. I am his sister. I just am. And there’s nothing in this world or the next that can change that. We have a relationship and a past and memories and identity wrapped up in the two of us *existing* together.

And that is not my only identity. My heart swells just the same when my mother calls me her daughter. When my cousin calls me his cousin. When my friend calls me her friend.

I think one of the biggest lies of the modern age is that we create our own identity. Don’t hear me say that we have no control over how we present ourselves, but, often, our identities are given to us. I didn’t choose who my mother would be. She and my father decided to become parents, they decided to go through with the pregnancy, and they decided to raise me into adulthood. And because they made all of those decisions, I am somebody’s daughter. Immediately upon my birth I was a daughter and a granddaughter and a great granddaughter and a cousin and a niece and a resident of Richlands Virginia. And two years later, when my parents had a second baby, I became a sister.

That is now seven titles I was given due exclusively to my place and my tribe. Not to mention my actual name that was also given to me without any of my own input.

This is probably going to sound so obvious that it might be borderline idiotic but, as a kid, or even now, how would I know that I was a daughter if I didn’t have a father who called me “my daughter”? How would I know that I was a cousin if I didn’t have a grandmother who said “now let’s get a picture with all the cousins!” before plopping me on a rocking chair next to five other kids with the same curls and face shapes as me?

I know that I am the contract writer and social media manager for a company because that was the job title on the top of the print out my boss gave to me on my first day of work. I am a graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University because, after a lot of research papers, I was given a diploma and a cheap white mug with the words “OBU alumni” on it.

Not long ago, there was a trend on social media where creators would post a picture or video of themselves with captions over the image listing their titles and nick names.

While, yes, it is just a fad that lasted maybe a month before people got bored and moved onto the next one, I do think it was a fascinating moment. Why are we just listing our names and the relationship that we have to them? I think it’s because we miss hearing them.

I believe that we as humans have a need to name and be named. To call and be called. I believe that is why young children are so excited to call a friend “my best friend”. Or why “pet names” are so common in romantic relationships. Naming was man’s first job on earth in Genesis 2. It’s something we’re made for. It’s something we crave.

I worry about life in the technological age sometimes because we are not verbally hearing identities voiced to us. We are not having our names wash over us and remind us of the person we are. Maybe every once and a while you’ll read your last name in an AI written email blast from Kohls but, on the daily, do you hear your name?

Are friends calling you by your first name out loud? Are they draping the title “friend” over you? Is your father calling you “my daughter” or “my son” like God did to his boy after Jesus was baptized? One of my favorite things about growing up in a mountain pentecostal church is hearing the way people refer to one another. “Hey, sister Jessi!” “Hey, brother Richard!” “Morning, pastor Travis!”

It sounds so natural and maybe insignificant but in actuality it is a subtle reminder of who we are. We are brothers and sisters in Christ with a body and a soul and a name. A name that is known and called and real.

Some of my favorite people in my life, I’ve noticed, are those who will often say my name. I had a professor who would essentially yell my name every time he saw me. He is one of those people who talks with exclamation marks. You know the type. “Graci!! How’s it going?”

My boxing coach gave me the title “Graci bear”. I’m not sure why, but he still calls me that when we talk on the phone. My dad called me “Salamander” as a kid and has since shortened it to “Sally”. Now, when I see a small colorful lizard of almost any type, I think of him. My grandpa calls me “Grace” and he has for as long as I can remember. When I was around six or seven years old, one of my best friends tried to call me Grace and I got so viscerally angry with her because “that’s what Papaw calls me!” (I’ve since apologized and she now lovingly calls me “G”.) Now that I’m older, I have a mentor who, after he learned my grandpa calls me Grace, decided he would do the same because, “Maybe I could be like a grandfather to you.”

What I’m trying to say is that names are important and being one who is called even more so. When we go weeks without hearing our identity echoed back to us, weeks of *at most* a “good morning” from the front desk secretary at work who forgot your name around the same time that you forgot hers, you are bound to feel… less human. We were designed to hear our names.

Our identity is not dependent on ourselves. We are not responsible to build it from the ground up. We are given pieces of it one by one by the place and the people around us and, with those pieces do we have the outline or the bones or the basic structure of our personhood. We have the choice of what we do with those pieces but we are not tasked with making something out of nothing. Only God can do that.

In Isaiah 43:1 God says, “Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.” Hearing our name gives us a sense of courage and belonging. It silences fear, it cures loneliness, and it reminds us who we are.

Now, we cannot demand that everyone in our lives calls us by a name, nickname, or some sort of title other than “Hon” or “Sweetheart” or “Current Resident”. But we can start referring to others with their name. Whether that be their real name or some sort of nickname, I don’t think it matters so much. We are starting from ground zero so it is not going to take much to feel radical. But if we band together and show people how good it feels to be called, this not at all progressive idea of calling people by their names might just catch on.