Names for Life?

          Nicole Franklin...... the name sounds so odd for me because I haven’t used it since I married my husband. Who was this person before? Did I change myself when I changed my last name? I can say I have. I have changed so much, grown so much and learned so much since I used my maiden name. It wasn’t an instantaneous change, but I have changed over time. When I changed my last name to Moua, I grew into a whole acceptance of culture. It wasn’t a mere name change for me; it was my way of showing how willing I was to adapt myself into my husband’s culture and lifestyle. I never lost touched with the person I once was, nor did I run from that person, I simply molded myself into who I am today.

            Some people change their names to hide, run from, or forget who they once were to move on with their future. After finishing the book “Jasmine” by Bharati Mukherjee, the main character (I will just call her Jasmine) goes through name changes with the experience she encounters. Her birth name is Jyoti. She was born in Punjab, India where she married Prakash. Her husband encouraged her to go to school and become what she desires. To help her on her way, he gives her the new name “Jasmine”. “To break off the past, he gave her a new name: Jasmine” (Mukherjee 77). Now Jasmine, she embraces the change from her husband. She wants to change her future and her destiny. Before she and her husband can go to America together, he dies in a bomb accident.

            Her first days in America were not what she thought they would be. After hiding away on a boat entering America, she is raped by a captain she calls Half-Face. In order to get her revenge, she takes on a new identity. She transforms herself to a Hindu goddess Kali by cutting her tongue and making it “turn red”. She stabs the captain to death and leaves him in a motel. Wandering the streets of Florida, she meets Lillian Gordon. Lillian begins to call her Jazzy, more of an American name because she is teaching Jasmine how to be an “American”. “Shocked at the transformation.  Jazzy in a T-shirt, tight cords, and running shoes” (Mukherjee 133)

            Her next name change happens in New York. Here she is a caregiver for Duff, the adopted child of Taylor and Wylie. Taylor calls her Jase. While being Jase she transforms herself into a modern “American” girl. “Jase was a woman who bought herself spangled heels and silk chartreuse pants” (Mukherjee 176).” Jase was happy in New York, even falling in love with Taylor, but once again she fled, this time to Iowa.

            Her last name change to Jane was given to her by Bud. Bud and Jane have a child together, but Jane is never truly happy. She is “almost” happy. Finally, this woman of many names and lives moves back with Taylor and changes her name back to Jase. She realizes that “I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmine, Taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane.  Half-Face for Kali” (Mukherjee 197). But what she wants people to see her as is “humorous, intelligent, refined, affectionate.  Not illegal, not murderer, not widowed, raped, destitute, fearful” (Mukherjee 171). The name Jase is where she can bring this person out. The person she wants people to see her as. She was embracing the new lives and names that went with them, “testing the waters” of what they offer. This way she could move on with her life to find the one person she was deep inside.   

            Just as woman change their last names to embrace their future with their husbands, Jase embraced her new names to learn and become who she is. The new names were only roads she could choose to continue to go down, or to stop and changed directions. In the end she chose to take a u-turn back to where she was the happiest. Changing your name isn’t a simple thing; it means more than what it’s perceived. It can mean as much as starting a brand new life, or simply embracing a change in your life.