What's in a Name

Brothers Building Blocks is a Certified Minority and Veteran-Owned Small Business Enterprise. We currently provide Health & Wellness Services and Education Enrichment Services to everyone. We are here to help! Our brand of seminars addresses a variety of topics ranging from mental health – Executive function.

Every individual has one, two, three and sometimes more given names that contributes to their identity, but have you ever wonder, what your name has to do with your identity?

According to American author Ralph Ellison, “It is through our names that we first place ourselves in the world. Our names, being the gift of others, must be made our own.”

This webinar is for participants to start thinking about our own names and our identity. More specifically, through this explorative exercise, we will consider the other factors that influence who we are as individuals. Then we will consider the parts of our identity that are given to us as well as the parts that we choose.

What do you think of your own name? Do you know the story of how you came to be called that? Where does your name come from? Who chose it? What does it mean? Has it always been the same? Do you have other names that people call you by? Whatever our cultural background, the question of how names are chosen, and what they mean, is important.

Indeed, when we meet someone new, our name is usually the first piece of information about ourselves that we share. It is often one of the first markers of our identity that others learn. In this lesson, we use names to introduce the concept of identity and the idea that each of our identities is the product of the relationship between the individual and society.