What’s In a Name?

I remember the exact moment I began to hate my name. I was eleven and my family had just moved to the Washington D.C. area from the tiny town in New Mexico where I was born. The first day of sixth grade, having lived in the area for all of two weeks, I introduced myself to the boy whose desk was next to mine. Because I was a chubby kid and there was a large player for the Redskins who shared last name of Perry and was known as “The Refrigerator,” he cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered, complete with fake echoes, “Beth…the refrigerator…Perry.” And that was how he—and all his friends—addressed me for the next six years, as the alphabet dictated that our lockers were next to each other. And in my mind, Beth became a synonym for “the fat girl.”

Even after college I tried, several times, to change my name and go by Elizabeth. It never really took hold. After a while I decided I needed to take a hard look at myself and what the problem was. Was I really going to let other people ruin my name for me? My parents put a lot of thought into my name. They cared about crafting a name that held a deep meaning, something that would, they hoped, shape the person I became. If you take the meanings of each of my names and put them in a sentence, my name means “A captivating and beautiful friend who is consecrated to God.” How could I not want that name? How could I not want to live up to it? So I embarked on a quest to reclaim my name’s meaning and make it what I thought of when someone used it, rather than hearing the fat girl subtext that was imprinted on my brain.

For years, my mother has talked about the importance of names. Based on an ancient Jewish tradition, one of the things she’s done for people is create an acrostic of their name, with an encouraging Bible verse for each letter. I’d had the one she made me since I was probably eight, but I finally took it out and actually looked at it. Studied it. It helped me see that I shouldn’t find my identity in the words of others—positive or negative. Their perception of me isn’t what matters. God’s perspective is.

I know this is not earth shattering. It wasn’t to me, either. Not intellectually, at least. But for the first time I was able to feel the truth of it and to let that truth dictate my thoughts. And I began to build on that. I wanted my self-image to be a reflection of what God sees in me, not the gunk that builds up as we walk through this fallen world. I’ll be honest; the process was slow. This makes sense. The negative associations took time to build up in my brain, and they weren’t going to disappear overnight. Today, I no longer hate my name. And more importantly, I don’t see it as an indication that I am less than everyone else around me.

If you’re struggling with your identity and self-worth, let me first say, I hear you. I hear the hurt that tore down your confidence. But you’re more than that hurt, and so am I. God is a good Father. We are loved by him. That, right there, is the identity I want to cling to. The hurts of the past matter less when I focus on that.

If your name has been a source of pain in your past, I encourage you to let God speak the truth of his love into your heart, because he is the one who calls us by name.

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“But now, this is what the Lord says—

he who created you, Jacob,

he who formed you, Israel:

‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have summoned you by name; you are mine.’”  (Isaiah 43:1, NIV)

Elizabeth Maddrey is an author of several contemporary Christian romance novels. She is also a wife, mother of two amazing boys, Awana Commander, and beloved daughter of the King. Though her PhD in Computer Science does little to help her succeed in any of those tasks, she owns her nerddom just the same. She blogs at elizabethmaddrey.com.