Ingoa o te ahau

"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet"

Be it Shakes, Shax, Shakespere, or Shakespeare, he is who he is, no matter the name.

What's interesting about this is the implication that follows the name. We call him Shakespeare, and a large amount of weight is carred. If someone calls him Shax, I think of my friend Shayna, who also goes by that name. And Shakes, well I think of dessert at Perkins.

Thus does giving this man other names change the way we interact with him? Does calling him the Bard make him a 'singer of tales,' even though his isn't? Can me make him greater (or lesser) by calling him a new name?

This is almost a fundemental question of everything. Does naming inspire being or being inspire naming? There seems that there must be a corollary between the two, but it is a fight over which way the world moves. If naming inspires being, does the renaming of something long after it has past (such as calling Shakespeare the 'Bard') change the past, or simply our perception of the past?

Names are, in the end, a riddle. They are both clue and answer, question and hint. They mean nothing, but mean everything (no American would name their child Judas or Osama). We hear them a thousand times a day with no meaning, but when they are forgotten we are hurt to the very core. The are flighty as the wind, and the only solid foundation we have with each other.

A name, by any other name, is just that.