What’s In A Name?

Programmers spend a lot of time thinking about names.

We name variables, functions, classes, and more. And the names we give can make a real difference in our code’s readability. We’ve all had the experience of working on an old piece of legacy code and wondering; is the variable temp holding the current temperature, or is it just a temporary placeholder? Or the programmer who named all of their variables x, x1, x2, etc.

It gets a little trickier when it comes to naming people and, more specifically, what they do.

Here some people start arguing that naming doesn’t really matter.

“Does it really matter if you’re called a Software Developer or a Software Engineer?” “Who cares if you get the title ‘Sr.’? As long as you do senior work and get paid a senior salary, does the title matter?”

At first glance, it may seem like they have a point; do names really matter? “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” in Shakespeare’s words.

But the truth is, names and titles do matter, especially to those of us who are usually marginalized and have a hard time getting their voices heard and respected.

In this week’s Parshah, Yaakov meets an angel. After a struggle, Yaakov insists that the angel bless him.

The angel told him, “Your name shall no longer be called Yaakov, but Yisrael because you have commanding power with [an angel of] God and with men, and you have prevailed.”

The name “Yaakov” was given to him because he was born on the heel (“akeiv” in Hebrew) of his brother Esav. Sure enough, up until that point, Yaakov’s life was dictated by the fear of his older brother, eventually causing him to leave home and hide for 20 years in the house of his uncle Lavan.

When Yaakov met the angel, the angel told him it was time to leave that behind. Instead of calling himself Yaakov, on the heels of his brother, his name would be Yisrael, from the Hebrew word “Sar,” or minister, he was now the ruler of his destiny and would have the upper hand over his adversaries.

Sure enough, Yaakov went on to meet his brother Esav, but this time from a position of power, they establish a truce, and from that point on, Esav is no longer a presence in Yaakov’s life.

So names clearly do make a difference. Maybe not to you, but to people who are used to being marginalized, that “Sr.” title can mean the difference between being ignored and being noticed. Between being talked over and being listened to.

So let’s find the “Yaakovs” in our work and be the angel who will help them discover their inner “Yisrael” (and yes, that Yaakov may very well be you)!