On the Power of Names

I shared this post with my friends Jaime and Sarah today and then we had the subsequent conversation about names.

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A post shared by Julian Sheridan (@julesesestv)

Jai: Suzie! 😍 A warm bath lol love him

My friend at work is changing her last name to her dad’s after 20 years of wanting to do it and she said it’s the most powerful thing she’s ever experienced.

Aaron: I love this for her!

Sarah: After I saw Leaving Las Vegas I wished my name was spelled Sera. It seemed more interesting. I feel like I’m def a Sarah, but the normal spellings are so boring

Jai: This is so interesting. Because I honestly don't feel like a Jaime lol. I figured everyone felt that way 🤔

Aaron: It’s so interesting how we don’t really name ourselves but names have such magic that we feel we can’t change them.

Trans people are, in fact, teaching us so much. Can we wield the magic power of naming ourselves?

Jai: I love that you call it magic 😆 because that's so what it is! How much more powerful can it get then naming ourselves. In occult teachings a lot of demons and other entities won't even give you their name because you would then hold too much power over them.

Aaron: Right! And we know this also very intimately because of the way our middle names are used.

Like if mom says your middle name.

Jai: 🤣

Aaron: I’m serious though!

Jai: I totally get it! I'm 100% with you on this. And even like sometimes my husband will say "Jaime" and it makes me stop and pause in a very real way because of how often we don't usually do that you know?

Aaron: Sarah was saying this the other day. That when you text each other you don’t usually say the person’s name.

I’ve started to use it sometimes when I text her.

Jai: So interesting

Aaron: I love what you said about demons not giving away their true names.

The magic of names fascinates me, and I've considered changing mine, but now I think we've been through so much together. I don't feel like my name represents me in any real way – in other words I don't think it's a version of me or gets something about me, really. But my name does stand in for me, especially in published material of course. It's funny, though, because hearing the name under which I publish (with the middle initial) said out loud by someone is a weird feeling. It's like I'm not really gonna live up to that name. That name seems way bigger than me.