Names

I am funny about names. I need to know them. When I was a kid I used to be really unhappy watching cartoons like Thundercats or Transformers if I didn’t know the names of those characters I was seeing and how they are connected t one another. I get like this now – as people who watch TV with me when I am new to a programme will attest. Maybe it is one of those innate quirks that led to me be becoming a scientist; I spent and still spend my time looking at names, remembering names and being curious about how those names came to be and how those names are related to one another.

This also applies to gods and ungods, I almost always need to have something to cal them, whether it be a name or title. I did go through a period where I got weird about knowing the names of the gods, the name beyond the title most of them have. I am over that now. 

This all ties back to something am working on; fetishes.  It occurred to me that naming them was important, especially the ones that will either be with me or the person I am making them for, for a long period of time. The notion that these will become familiars of sorts I important; they will b fed, looked after and serve a role in some way or another. They will become household spirits of sorts. What also occurred to me is that naming them based on their proper taxonomic name was important; Pica pica (magpie) or Prunus (blackthorn) for example. To me, the scientific name is them; it is their very essence in terms of the human relationship with the organism. They may be known by many names across many parts of the land, but at their heart and core they have only one name and that name never changes (ok, maybe sometimes with taxonomic wrangling).