True name

For the novel, see True Names. For the term as used in civil law, see true name (legal). For the philosophical concept, see proper name (philosophy). For The MS-DOS computer command, see List of DOS commands#TRUENAME.

A true name is a name of a thing or being that expresses, or is somehow identical with, its true nature. The notion that language, or some specific sacred language, refers to things by their true names has been central to philosophical study as well as various traditions of magic, religious invocation and mysticism (mantras) since antiquity.[1][2]

Philosophical and religious contexts

Socrates in Cratylus considers, without taking a position, the possibility whether names are "conventional" or "natural", that is, whether language is a system of arbitrary signs or whether words have an intrinsic relation to the things they signify.[3]

The true name of the Egyptian sun god Ra was revealed to Isis through an elaborate trick. This gave Isis complete power over Ra and allowed her to put her son Horus on the throne. [4]

Hellenistic Judaism emphasized the divine nature of logos, later adopted by the Gospel of John. The true name of God plays a central role in Kabbalism (see Gematria, Temurah, YHWH [the tetragrammaton]) and to some extent in Sufism (see 100th name of God). The ancient Jews considered God's true name so potent that its invocation conferred upon the speaker tremendous power over His creations. To prevent abuse of this power, as well as to avoid blasphemy, the name of God was always taboo, and increasingly disused so that by the time of Jesus their High Priest was supposedly the only individual who spoke it aloud — and then only in the Holy of Holies upon the Day of Atonement.[5]

Also in a Biblical context, in the tale of Jacob's nocturnal wrestling with an anonymous angel, the angel refuses to reveal his own name to Jacob even after the angel's submission at dawn. Thereafter Jacob obtains a new name which signifies his successful struggle to God and man, and names the place to commemorate his surviving an encounter with the Divine.[6]

Contemporary pre-industrial peoples guard secret names which are only used in solemn rituals. These names are never mentioned and kept from general knowledge.[7]

Folklore

According to practises in folklore, knowledge of a true name allows one to affect another person or being magically.[8] It is stated that knowing someone's, or something's, true name therefore gives the person (who knows the true name) power over them. This effect is used in many tales,[9] such as in the German fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin: within Rumpelstiltskin and all its variants, the girl can free herself from the power of a supernatural helper who demands her child by learning its name.[10]

A legend of Saint Olaf recounts how a troll built a church for the saint at a fantastic speed and price, but the saint was able to free himself by learning the troll's name during a walk in the woods.[11] Similarly, the belief that children who were not baptised at birth were in particular danger of having the fairies kidnap them and leave changelings in their place may stem from their unnamed state.[12] In the Scandinavian variants of the ballad Earl Brand, the hero can defeat all his enemies until the heroine, running away with him, pleads with him by name to spare her youngest brother.[13]

In Scandinavian beliefs, more magical beasts, such as the Nix, could be defeated by calling their name.[14] For the same reason significant objects in Germanic mythology, which were considered to have some kind of intrinsic personality, had their own names too, for example the legendary Sword Balmung.

In cryptography

The term "true name" is sometimes used in cryptography and computer security to refer to a name that is assumed to uniquely identify a principal in a global namespace (for example, an X.500 or X.509 Distinguished name). This usage is often critical, with the implication that use of true names is difficult to enforce and unwise to rely on.

In popular culture

In fantasy where magic works by evoking true names, characters often go to great lengths to conceal their true names. In some settings, such as Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea, this is true for all beings. In others, as in Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away, it applies only to those of magical inclination, as where a wizard is revived from the dead only by another who found his name, and even then only with great difficulty. Finding a true name may require arcane procedures. In Earthsea, a wizard must listen for and give the hero his true name; this is performed in both Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan.

A character remembering their true name may be an important means of maintaining mastery of their own life. In Hayao Miyazaki's movie Spirited Away, the witch who runs the bathhouse, Yubaba, ensures loyalty by stealing the names of her subjects. For example, one of the witch's most loyal subjects, the spirit of the Kohaku River, has his name taken and is given a slave name: Haku. He forgets his name, and it is in this way 'taken' from him; he warns Chihiro Ogino against the dangers of forgetting her own name. She frees him when she recognises him and he then remembers and 'takes back' his name and is freed from the clutches of the witch.

In the cyberpunk genre following Vernor Vinge's 1981 True Names and the work of William Gibson, much of the plot involved interactions between people's virtual selves in cyberspace. Learning a fellow hacker's real-world name (i.e., their "true name") could allow you to turn them in to the government or otherwise blackmail them, conveying a kind of power that could be considered analogous to the equivalent concept of myth and legend.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Magical Name (paganwiccan.about.com)
  2. ↑ Finding Your Wiccan Name (wicca-spirituality.com)
  3. ↑ pp. 4 & 18, David Sedley, Plato's Cratylus, Cambridge U Press 2003.
  4. ↑ Harris, Geraldine (1981). Gods & Pharaohs from Egyptian Mythology. London, England: Eurobook Limited. pp. 24–25. ISBN 0-87226-907-8
  5. ↑ Richard Stuart Gordon, The Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends, pp. 480-1, Headline Book Publishing, London, 1993 ISBN 0-7472-3936-3
  6. ↑ Genesis 32:22-31
  7. ↑ Frazer, James, "Tabooed Words" in The Golden Bough, first volume abridged edition, (New York: Mentor, 1959), pages 235-246
  8. ↑ Philip Martin, The Writer's Guide to Fantasy Literature: From Dragon's Lair to Hero's Quest, p 134, ISBN 0-87116-195-8
  9. ↑ Maria Tatar, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, p 260 W. W. Norton & company, London, New York, 2004 ISBN 0-393-05848-4
  10. ↑ Maria Tatar, p 128, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, ISBN 0-393-05163-3
  11. ↑ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 95, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  12. ↑ K. M. Briggs, The Fairies in English Tradition and Literature, p 115 University of Chicago Press, London, 1967
  13. ↑ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 91, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  14. ↑ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 95-6, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  15. ↑ Maria Tatar, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, p 261 W. W. Norton & company, London, New York, 2004 ISBN 0-393-05848-4
  16. ↑ Spivack, Charlotte, Ursula K. Le Guin, (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1984), page 27.
  17. ↑ Rothfuss, Patrick:The Name of the Wind, 27 March 2007, DAW Books Hardcover ISBN 978-0-7564-0407-9, pages=662}
  18. ↑ The spell Trap the Soul is one such example, where knowledge of a true name allows the capture of even those immune to magic.
  19. ↑ The Language of Doctor Who. Rowman & Littlefield. May 2014. p. 126. ISBN 978-1-4422-3481-9. Retrieved 3 October 2014.

Sources

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