ABSTRACT
Naming is a meaningful and political act. There is a long history of using names to symbolise political viewpoints, and to actualise them. In this chapter I wish to explore some of these political uses – and abuses – of names to explore the power and politics invested in names and naming practices. This is most explicitly a part of black American history; in the case of American slavery the point of renaming was to change a person’s status, erase their history, and force a change of identity. However, there are many acts of naming that can be used to illustrate the ways in which names are not meaningless combinations of letters passed, changed, and taken in arbitrary ways. Names in the context of Britain and gender are closely tied up with feminism and women taking control of their own lives: this may at first seem an odd connection, but as this chapter will argue, not when names are understood politically as representing who has power, authority, and control over others. Therefore, I will begin by looking at names in a variety of political examples before turning to feminism in particular and the narratives my participants used to connect their naming decisions with feminism and feminist principles.
