Across many cultures, names grant a sense of identity and individuality. One google of “why are names important?” returns many results, most of which explore various issues of identity coupled with a potential sense of otherness. I bring this up because the concept of the importance of names just doesn’t stop appearing in Percival Everett’s work. To quickly return to I am Not Sidney Poitier, consider Not Sidney. So much in his life occurs around his name, and it’s key in who he becomes as a person and what he does. It gives him a sense of individuality, but also otherness from the strange nature of his name. However, this post isn’t really going to focus on I am Not Sidney Poitier. Instead, I’m going to discuss names in the context of “Zulus”, a poem by Everett. Oh, and this guy:
I want to focus on the quote “always name offspring”, which appears twice in the poem. I was so hung up on this quote, and I couldn’t pinpoint why; why did the line “always name offspring” strike me as so strangely ominous? For some reason, a character from a show I watched when I was younger came to me. From Avatar the Last Airbender, the spirit Koh had the ability to steal someone’s face. He amassed a collection of various faces, without one to call his own. The key here, I suppose, is that the spirit wasn’t given a name when he was created; he gave himself the name “Koh”. Nothing gave this spirit a sense of self; it collected the faces of others, constantly switching his appearance, and had no given name that tied him down to, for example, a family. What I’m getting to is Everett’s warning; “Always name your offspring”. Koh had no face of his own, and he took his name himself. He was not named by his mother, and lacked any form of concrete identity or origin, which consequently allowed him to take the identity of others. Damage was done because this spirit lacked a given name or face. Of course, there are allusions in “Zulus” that tackle the same concept, as well as others.
The references surrounding “always name offspring” make similar points about names. In “Zulus”, Everett first brings up Dr. Frankenstein, who never named his creation (or child, in a way), when he writes “F is for Frankenstein, who did not name his baby” (page 20). In Frankenstein, the creation is only known as “Frankenstein’s monster”, “Creature”, or any variation thereof; he never truly has a name to call his own. At times, he is tormented by the fact that he can never be accepted as a part of the world around him. His physical appearance may be what primarily causes the horrible treatment the monster receives from other people, but his lack of a name is another thing that makes him seem “other”. The other mention of the quote in question is on page 28 of “Zulus”, “that frightening revelation…’the number of his name’”. This references chapter 13 of the Book of Revelations, which lists that number as “six hundred threescore and six”, or 666. 666 is the number of “the Beast”, which typically refers to the Antichrist. The Antichrist also has no name. It actually goes by many names, and takes many forms across various religions. The Antichrist also does not always mean a physical being; it may even be an ideal, such as temptation. Although, while both these references in “Zulus” cite the potential effects of names, they deal with different outcomes
The references I’ve cited actually deal with two different effects of not “naming offspring”. As mentioned with Frankenstein’s monster and Not Sidney, the lack of a typical name may remove the sense of belonging that is so key to assimilating into a society, sadly convicting the person to the status of outsider. However, in the case of figures such as Koh or the Antichrist, the freedom from such an identifying label may act as an insidious benefit. It allows the Antichrist to move anonymously and recruit more people in its agenda against God. Koh’s lack of a both traceable name AND face allows him a similar freedom, as the anonymous spirit acquires and appropriates the identities of others. Sometimes, the lack of a name may be seen as a negative, but it could also be said that it grants special power in its otherness. The nameless may move outside of the societal restrictions of labels.
Now the reason I took Everett’s word as a warning makes sense. “Always name your offspring”; names carry weight and importance in our culture, and there are a vast array of consequences if one ignores this rule.