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What's In A Name By Henry Louis Gates Jr.

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Importance of Names After reading “What’s in a Name?” by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in the textbook, Patterns for College Writing, gave myself a whole new perspective on not only my name but everyone else's too. For our name is our personal identity and we should carry it with pride. In addition to this, we should respect other’s names as well, especially in this day of age. It supplies a sense of oneness, which can be very difficult to find nowadays. The primary role of naming is to give identification because without names there would be no way to recognize people, buildings, and even places. “What’s in a Name?” by Henry Gates Jr. in the book, Patterns for College Writing opens the readers eye on how important our name is and how we should carry
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Although his approach changes, this time seems to have stuck out the most to me. The importance of a name, is like the importance of big moments through your life. A name is what makes you yourself, how people remember you and what makes you special and unique. 4. “In America anything is possible. Do as you wish.”

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It is chosen with the characteristics from past bearers in mind. Names carry stories. They hold stories of the past. Names hold the history and culture of the past and bring them to the present. They are vessels through which the present can connect with the

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Although one’s name might seem menial in the grand scheme of things, it is a crucial part of one’s identity. By choosing to take her first husband’s last name, she was choosing to be her own person, without the obvious connection to her family that followed her wherever she went. Choosing which name she wanted to go by gave her the power to define her relationships, both with her parents and her second husband. By separating herself from the Cibber name, she was allowing herself to make her career, as well as her identity, her own, without the overbearing influence of her

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