The Name Game Published on December 11, 2011

Names are funny things. With a short burst of language, we assign syllables and sounds to people, places, and objects that are always more complex than a simple collection of words. Some people are “name” people with an affinity for connecting names with faces, and are all the more personable because of it. Unfortunately I do not possess the talent of name retention, struggling to remember those outside of my immediate family, but I have recently been paying attention to the role names play in my daily life.

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 One morning over breakfast, my dad told me that in the world of turtle experts, he has name recognition. “When people hear the name Bill Gates,” he told me, “they think of computers. When they hear the name Lamine, they think of turtles. I am the number one turtle expert in Senegal; my brother and I started a movement here when we opened the Village des Tortues as a tourist destination.” He is so serious when he boasts to me like this I cannot help but smile. Because I have adopted the family name, does that mean that I have name recognition too, as the temporary daughter of the number one turtle expert in Senegal? It must be true, because I definitely feel more important.

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 There has been a series of French stagiaires at the Village des Tortues since I came to Noflaye. One particularly stubborn, headstrong young eco-volunteer had trouble adjusting to her Senegalese name, Mati, instead of her given name, Mathilde. “I don’t know why people can’t just call me by my real name,” she said to me one day. “They’re so similar anyways. I am making so many other concessions by living here; I just feel that by changing my name I am being fully robbed of my identity.” Truly, I think the few letters change in her name made little difference in light of the way she carried herself, head held high and identity more than intact, through her four weeks in Senegal.

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 The name Allah seems to occur frequently in the course of my daily life. Unlike 94% of the Senegalese people, I am not Muslim, but in the course of learning Wolof I have espoused many of the Islamic phrases they sprinkle into everyday conversation. “I will see you on Monday, inchallah (if Allah be willing),” my mentor tells me every Friday when we finish work at the tree farm. The syllables resonate in his mouth like a prayer in a mosque, deliberate and deep and resonating. Whether it is all in my head or beyond my comprehension, the name Allah has a weight to it; though it does not resurrect the buried piety in my heart, it is a connection between my daily actions and the higher workings of the universe.

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 My name is Mame Diarra Bali Busso Erica Anderson Diagne, though I will respond to any one of those names in combination (and in addition to Toubab, “Ameriken I love you,” and Lady Gaga). My identity is as eclectic as my plethora of names for it, and I am slowly learning more about myself as I go through life outside of my native environment. I am constantly adapting to my new home and as a result, I present myself a little bit differently every day. This change cannot be defined by a switch in names; I no longer put much stock in the connection between a name and an identity. I do not exclusively belong to one family, one country, or one personality. So feel free to call me what you like (though I must confess that Lady Gaga is my personal favorite).