I’m standing in a grocery store aisle when I hear my name being called. Not Lori…the other one.
Mom.
I immediately look up, searching for a kid, my kid, even though neither of them is with me. It’s automatic, like when the doctor hits my knee with that triangle-shaped instrument, checking my reflexes. For almost 32 years, not a single person called me Mom, nor did I ever look up upon hearing it. And yet, now, as if christened with it from birth, my head shoots up like my knee every time someone calls out for Mom.
The irony is that Mom isn’t technically a name; it’s a word. But as Merriam-Webster notes, it is “often used as a name.” And aren’t all names just words we assign to people to signify who they are and differentiate them from others? But Mom - and Dad - is different. It is not a unique signifier of a single person; instead, it’s a collective name assigned to a larger group of people who are fulfilling the same societal role.
“Like personal names,” Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan write in The Language of Names, “collective (or nonpersonal) names have an instrumental role. They reflect and shape social values, group self-regard, and historical understandings.”
The origins of the word Mom (aka mama) aren’t entirely clear. Many theories suggest that nursing babies are the ones who birthed it (see what I did there). According to the linguist Roman Jakobson, when babies nurse, they make a slight nasal murmur as their lips are pressed to their mother’s breast or a bottle. When this murmur is made while not feeding, Jakobson said it comes out as an m followed by a vowel sound. Then, that sound gets associated with feeding and, in turn, with the person providing the food. This, historically, has been mothers. It makes sense, then, that the Latin word mamma means ‘breast” (and is the root for common words, like mammal).
The word Mom was first recorded around 1867, but it likely derived from the word mama or mamma, which goes back much further (some linguists suggest as far back as 50,000 years ago). The word mother, which is among the 23 words considered the oldest in the world, is thought to originate from an ancient human language used around the time of the last ice age. It’s safe to say that we’ve been using Mom, mama, or mother for quite a while.
Not only does Mom span across centuries, but it also permeates most cultures. Of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken worldwide, most have a similar word for Mom.
Both Swahili and Quechua (very different languages from English and each other) use the word mama. In Mandarin Chinese, it’s mãma, and in Hindi, it’s māṃ. The majority of languages include the syllable ma in their maternal names. In Afrikaans, ma is the word for Mom; in Navajo, it’s amá; in Hebrew, it’s ima; in Aramaic, it’s imma; and in Korean, it’s eomma.
Although there are slight variations, Mom feels like a communal name.
Names bind us to each other, but Mom does so in a different way. It’s not just a name we share but an experience. For instance, I know I am not the only one who looks up when I hear Mom (or Mama) called out. When we hear it, it calls something deep within us. Similarly to when we hear our given names spoken, hearing someone call for Mom is a cue for attention, connection, and interaction. This aligns with the theory that nursing babies created it as a way to call for their mothers.
The word mother comes from the Latin word mater. (Fun fact: alma mater, the school you once attended, literally means “nourishing mother”). Mater is the basis for everything that matters…literally. The word matter (and material) comes from the root mater, and, “at its most fundamental level,” one science textbook says, “life is made up of matter.” Without mother, there is no life.
Modern society largely ignores this sentiment…with one exception: Mother Nature. This name, which is shared across many cultures, is what we use to describe the natural world around us. Water rushing over rocks, a seed cracking open to grow roots before becoming a tree, a spider spinning a web - these things we call Mother Nature.
It is unclear how or why nature was given this name—or deemed a mother at all. Some experts suggest it’s because the word nature stems from the Latin word natura, which, in ancient times, literally meant birth. The earliest written reference to Earth as a mother was in Greek in the 12th or 13th century BCE. And there are theories that her femininity stems from the Enlightenment period. Supposedly, people who wanted to study nature needed a method for doing that without likening it to God. Since God was seen as male, nature became female.
Stories about nature goddesses date back to the Early to Middle Bronze Age (3000 to 2001 BC). They may have had other names besides Mother Earth—like Gaia, the Greek goddess of Earth—but they almost all translate to mean Mother Earth. It’s a collective, communal name, just like Mom or Mama.
I wonder if Mother Nature would respond reflexively to hearing her name called in a grocery store. Would she sometimes also feel the weight of her name and everything it encompasses?
When I hear someone say Lori, I look up because it’s my name, but this reflexive response causes a slight internal startle. I think that’s me, but also, that’s me? This cognitive dissonance applies to hearing someone call for Mom…especially out of context (like when I’m in a grocery store without my kids). I may reflexively respond to both my names, but I am often surprised that they belong to me.
Every kid goes through a phase where they call (or want to call) their parents by their first names. When I was a kid, calling a mom by her first name was seen as disrespectful. Now that I am an adult and a mom, I feel the exact opposite. Not only is it fascinating to see the curiosity my kids have about who I am, but it feels nice to have them recognize me as a person outside of being their mom.
Still, the name Lori hasn’t always felt like it fits me; however, Mom has, and comfortably. But it bears a weight that Lori doesn’t. Perhaps that’s why it’s a communal name - it takes all of us to carry the load.
I remember as a kid lost in a grocery store once I yelled “Mom” and four random mom-strangers looked around. I was scared if I called “Carolyn” I would get in trouble. Fast forward, we quizzed our kids when they were little with our REAL names so they’d be comfortable shouting it out.