Tentatively Titled

The birth of something

Naming this substack was like naming our first child. When I was pregnant with her, deciding on a name felt like the hardest part of having a baby. This is laughable, I know. Despite the ridiculousness of this sentiment, deciding what someone will be called for the rest of their life is a tremendous responsibility. 

“What others call us and what we call ourselves,” Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan write in the Language of Names, “has a more than nominal importance and is not just a social convenience, like a stickum ‘Hello’ badge. Names are profoundly linked to identity and to private as well as public declarations of self and purpose.” My thoughts exactly. 

A name is not just a name; what we decided to call our daughter mattered. The Romans had an expression, nomen est omen, “name is omen,” which sums up my prenatal fears. If names are a sign of who we are, a blueprint of our future selves, then naming our daughter meant her fate lay in our hands. The weight of this sat heavy in my bones. 

So, I did what I typically do when a big decision needs to be made: I did everything but make a decision. 

I went down rabbit holes on names, their origins, and meanings. Each week, I called our soon-to-be-daughter a different name from our shortlist, which was a great way to cross off a few names. I looked up stories of people who changed their kid’s name after the fact. Baby name remorse - also called baby name regret - is so common that many states allow name changes without a court order up to six or 12 months after the baby is born. One woman I read about changed her daughter’s name after a year, which makes things more complicated. This made me think of my aunt, who regretted not naming her son Adam. Once, when he was in his twenties, she asked if she could start calling him Adam. (He said no.) 

The reality was that I already knew our daughter’s name, but my fear of commitment - despite getting married and having a baby - made me second-guess it. Even after she was born, I couldn’t commit to the name we chose, Zoe. Do you look like a Zoe? I asked my hour-old baby as if she could look like a person with a history and story. In a panic, I randomly pulled out a new name we had never considered and wondered if we should call her that. A few hours later, I realized last-minute naming in postpartum hormonal delirium probably wasn’t the best idea.

It took two more days until we could fully commit to her name, and nearly 12 years later, I still occasionally wonder if we made the right choice.

So, a year ago, when I decided to start this Substack - even though I quickly abandoned it - I got hung up on the name. Like naming our daughter, I was deciding the life of this blog/newsletter/whatever you want to call it. I knew I wanted to write about names, naming practices, and how they shape our individual and collective identity. I wanted to explore history and cultures through the lens of names, but I also wanted the freedom to write about other topics. I thought choosing a name-related name would pigeonhole me, and I would only be allowed to write about that one topic. (I like to follow made-up rules that don’t exist.)

I procrastinate to avoid commitment; naming was becoming one of the sharpest tools in my procrastination toolbox. 

I created a short list of catch-all names for this Substack that would allow me to write about anything. My favorite was Meat and Potatoes, a phrase representing ordinary but fundamental things. But it also felt random and vague, especially given my interest in writing about names. Even as I type this now, I wonder if I should return to Meat and Potatoes. It’s fun and much better than Perpetual Procrastinator, which was an actual name I considered - terrible but also very on point. 

The general names I short-listed were just that, general. They didn’t give a sense of what I was writing about, and that vagueness now offered a counter worry to my pigeon-hole one: that I would choose a name without enough focus. Without some container with which to guide my writing, I might spill out into nothing. 

I had become the Goldilocks of names, unable to find one that was just right. 

As I perused my laundry list of ever-changing Substack names, I chuckled in that marvelous way you only do with yourself. I should call it Tentatively Titled, I joked to myself. Brief pause. Images and thoughts flashed across my mind the way memories do, before one of those light bulbs popped above my head as if I were a cartoon. 

Felix the Cat was the first representation of a light bulb as an idea in the early 1900s.

A tentative title is what you use when you don’t yet have a name for a project. It removes the pressure and allows you to move forward. Tentative means not certain or fixed; provisional. It’s noncommittal but in the best way possible. It represents hesitation or something done without confidence, which is clearly how I approached this. And, best of all, by its very nature, tentative is subject to change, which is perfect for the commitment phobe in me. It may not be as weird and whimsical as Meat and Potatoes, but it fits like the small bed in Goldilocks - just right. 

Names and naming practices have occupied significant real estate in my mind for the past 15 years; it’s a lens through which I have viewed (mostly American) society, so the irony of my Substack name struggle is not lost on me. The names, titles, labels, and roles we ascribe to ourselves and each other mean something. 

Names can be liberating, and they can be confining; they identify and distinguish us from each other, and they tie us together and create a sense of belonging. They say something about where we come from, who we are, and what we believe; they shed light on our history and pave a new way forward. 

They have roots. They hold power. They tell our stories. 

I’m not saying names are everything, but they aren’t nothing either. They are something, and that something is worth exploring. That’s why I created this new baby of mine, Tentatively Titled. A lot of this will be about names and how they shape us individually and collectively, but some of it won’t. There are other topics I want to make space for, like the beautiful and difficult parts of being human (or some weird or random tidbits I find).

I am approaching this the way I approached having a baby: I have some plans and ideas of how things will go, but I’m open to whatever arises. This thing is likely to have a life of its own, or so I hope. And I’m pretty certain that, like having a baby, the hardest part of this project won’t be coming up with the name.