The Name Game

Jacqueline Vivian Ioimo. God, it sounds so proper; something that I don’t see myself being at times. If you ask my mother, she named me after Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis. If you ask my father, he’d say Jaclyn Smith from Charles Angels. Never-the-less, I was born with a name that I have kept and have been called different versions and forms of it throughout my life. I personally like being called Jackie, but many of my friends have been able to either shorten my name or add on to it.

But what is in a name? Is it just a word that we are given, or does it mean something more? Do we truly change into a different person or is the name that is given to us by our parents, family and friends just a word to identify who we are?

In Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee, the main character (Jane) comes from a foreign country and moves to America. Here she goes through changes, not only within herself, but in her appearance and name. She finds herself being able to reinvent herself by taking in the “American Dream”: living in a rural community, adopting a child, and being pregnant. Yet it seems that whenever Jane moves, a new person approaches. In Punjab, her name was Jyoti Vinn. When she moved to New York, she was giving the name Jasmine and then in Iowa her soon-to-be husband gave her the name Jane. Each name that she has had gives off not only a different person, but a different turning point in her life. Jyoti Vinn was the woman who went through pain and suffering in Punjab whereas Jasmine was the woman who was starting a new life in a new area; experiencing America for the first time. Finally, we have Jane, who symbolizes the older woman who is settling down with a family. “I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmine, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-Face for Kali” (197).

Yet each time that she does move, she is given the new name to her; she did not create it for herself. Instead, the person that she is involved with bestows a new name along with a new identity, a new lifestyle, a new personality. Whenever a new name approaches she somehow “murders” her old self and creates a new one.

In chapter 18, Jane talks about her encounter with Mary Webb and how she believes in past-lives. Mary Webb goes into further detail about a group that she is apart of that is ran by Ma Leela. Ma Leela is a lady who believes that she was sent from the heavens and placed into a body of a woman who tried to commit suicide. When the suicidal woman was being revived, Ma Leela entered her body and took over. Jane finds this story to be very amusing and finds out that she does believe in people being “reborn”. She is soon able to point out the different characters of her life and how each one is not the same. “Jyoti of Hasnapur was not Jasmine, Duff’s day mummy and Taylor and Wylie’s au pair in Manhattan; that Jasmine isn’t this Jane Ripplemeyer having lunch with Mary Webb… (127).

I find myself to be in Jasmine’s shoes throughout this novel.  The names that she is given are different characters that shape who she is, where she’s been, and what she has done.  Looking back on names that I have been called by my parents and friends, I realize that each one has somewhat of a different meaning to the person I truly am.  My legal name shows where I come from, what my parents would like me to become: a strong woman with good character, a strong mindset, and who’s able to become successful.  Jackie reflects my personality and the other names that have been given to me mirror my past, my accomplishments, and my adventures.  Some names bring back recollection of how I used to be and where I was during that time in my life.  Names from past relationships bring back old memories (good and bad) and show what I have learned from other people as well as myself. 

I don’t believe that the names that we are given completely destroy the names that we have had or who we were in the past.  Instead, I feel that they shape who we are as a person.  They mold us into who we are now: showing the different “characters” that we have inside us.  Who knows, one day this Jackie might actually start feeling like a Jacqueline or maybe she’ll be able to find a name that is a mixture between the two.