Name and Identity

Identity, though complex, can be encoded in a name. The name bears the stamp of the namers' traditions and their hopes for the child. The infant's characteristics influence the choice to some degree and, to a degree, a name affects the person who bears it. The interface between names and personal identity is illustrated clinically in syndromes of transsexualism and multiple personality, in twinning, and in the development of the ego-ideal.