The scene: Winchester Cathedral. The occasion: The University of Winchester Graduation, Class of 2025. On the dais: a succession of students from across the world, and at the very first ceremony, students from the Faculty of Business and Digital Technologies.
Those of us attending these ceremonies as appreciative onlookers enjoy noticing the oddities of these well-honed rituals. This year, as it came to the postgraduate award in International Business Management, we smiled at a string of students stepping forward with the surname Kaur – 49 in a row, in fact.
Four of them had the first name Amandeep, which made me wonder whether, if one Amandeep had been missing, would the University have been able to work out which of them had not received an MBA!
Many less ignorant than me will know why there were so many Kaurs. It’s a religious name meaning ‘princess’, given at the very end of the seventeenth century to all Sikh girls. The men were all to be named Singh, meaning ‘lion’ and, by extension, ‘warrior’. Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru, did this to abolish the social divisions caused by caste-based surnames and to promote equality between women and men.
English surnames, too, carry a residue of history. Names like Fletcher, Smith, Baker, Taylor and Cooper betray their medieval origins in trade. My own surname is the Dutch for ‘belt’, though sadly no belt-making ancestor is on record. These names were about belonging to a family or clan, with first names also recycled in tribute to past generations.
The emphasis now on names, though, is individuality. There will not be a stampede to follow Elon Musk and his wife Grimes in naming their child X Æ A-Xii, known as X for short (though, in his case, not formerly known as Twitter). Grimes tells us that his name references an unknown variable, artificial intelligence in Elvish and the forerunner to a high-speed aircraft!
Ancient wisdom gives us a deep perspective on what names are for: they connect us with the depths of others. When Jesus encountered a man possessed, shackled to prevent him from doing harm, he asked him, ‘What is your name?’ The man replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many’. Getting a handle on that inner complexity was the beginning of his deliverance. To everyone other than Jesus, he was simply a danger.
Names are a handle to our soul. They are what we are called by. They summon us from slumber when all else fails. They encapsulate our identity to such an extent that we give them to one another the moment we meet. Parents have the privilege of choosing them at birth, as they continue their work of making and moulding a precious human being.
Each of us is unique, whether our names are wacky or worn smooth by tradition. But for each Amandeep Kaur or impossibly dubbed Musk child, a road lies ahead which is ours alone to tread, and its treading will make everyone unrepeatably special.
There is a modern hymn written by John Bell which widens the view of what is in a name. Bell belongs to the Iona Community, founded in 1938 by the Revd George MacLeod to promote justice and peace through living and working together in community.
Bell emphasises that when each is called, we are called together to heal the brokenness of the world, which is a brokenness we experience in ourselves. As we are summoned and as we respond to his gentle but insistent call, so we are healed in the company of Christ and of one another, and so we are fitted to be agents of healing and reconciliation in God’s world:
Will you come and follow me if I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown? Will you let my Name be known?
Will you let my life be grown in you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see if I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoner free and never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean, and do such as this unseen?
And admit to what I mean in you and you in me?
Will you love the ‘You’ you hide if I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found to reshape the world around
through my sight and touch and sound in you and you in me?
Christ, your summons echoes true when you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go where your love and footsteps show,
thus I’ll move and live and grow in you and you in me?
With blessings and best wishes,
The Revd Canon Dr Roland Riem