What's in a (new) name?
Posted on May 21st, 2008
by 
Innish
Innish
I have decided that on my 50th birthday I would change my name. I made this declaration when I turned 49, 10 months ago. On my vision quest, I tried out the name Ki Sugati. While I like it in concept, it sounded so hard when spoken. It wasn't exactly lilting. It had about it more of that germanic or danish glottal stop.
My initial choice, way back when I had decided that I might change my name, was Innish. I like that name. I'm celtic and danish (and italian) and somehow that name came tripping off the tongue. I thought that, well, no man is an island, and maybe it wouldn't work so well.
Trouble is, I like it. (You'll notice that the original name I signed up with Zaadz was innish, and my address here is innish.gaia.com.)
Numerologically, Inis works out best, to a 10. (At a recent class, a classmate--Forest--nicknamed me Skye. I like that, too. An island of sky. A sky island. There's a dreamlike quality to it. Skye works out to 11.)
There's the nuisance of nicknames, of course. Innie? Bound to get jokes about that one. But no more than I currently get for Homer. Oy.
And then there's the inevitable questions as to how to spell it.
I'm thinking about the last name--I want to be completely self-referencing and sourcing from the future--and so far I'm enchanted by the poem by Keats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. An island of freedom? I'm jiggy with that. Otherwise, I may just be one of those one-namers. In fact, I might be an Innish, free of a last name.
So, please, bear with me while I try it on for a while.
Meanwhile, enjoy the poem, as I do:
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
Access: Public
change
August 2008 