Shades of names, Calling attention to the societal perceptions of names

This project started with a conversation about my recent concerns as a human being in 2019 embedded within the overlapping realities of climate change, international conflicts between nationalists and immigrants, and my own inquiries into the sense of belonging. I approach this work from a post-humanist and ecofeminist perspective, heavily influenced by the writings of Donna Haraway.

As a new mother, I felt the responsibility of giving the right name for my ‘adorable’. As I saw new mothers around me sharing the same concern, I began to investigate multicultural names which have no signs of any religion, political violence, nationalism or gender. I was surprised how difficult it is to find a name that could avoid these signifiers.

I kept searching for stories that are similar in different parts of the world, countries and contexts. I listened to stories from people around me about how and why they were named, or how they named their ‘adorable’.

This project is to critique and unpack our recent names and try to raise the awareness of the complexity of names as identities. Moreover, as a designer for change I suggest different scenarios on how to rethink our perception of names and re-design the process of generating names.