It’s well known that names have power. The many and diverse mythologies of the world are full of examples of names being used as a curse, or a bargaining tool. It is understandable if you dont believe it, then thats on you, but you cant say you werent warned.
Perhaps, you might say, as a counterpoint, names are abused constantly without repurcussions. Mispronunciations are rampant. Place names are more commonly called something in a different language. Even some people change their names more often than they have hot dinners. Names have power? No, you might say, we’ve proven that we are the ones with power.
And it is hard to argue with that. But I shout your name from across a crowded room. I say it in a specific tone and people dont look at me. They look at you. They wonder what you did to get such a summons. They step back from you as if you have a contagion. They dont care why I said what I did, just that you are the reason. A spell, if you want a word for it.
You might not call it real magic. I might not call it that either, but if it works, then Ill take it. Magic, above all else, relies on a certain pragmatism.
It also helps to remember that people want to believe. In their bones. Because its still there, in each of us, this ability to summon magic. To use it on people. And for that, you need names. So even the wrong names, the made up names and the changed names, they still have power. If you use them correctly.
I hear you thinking, I hear you muttering. I know what youre going to say, and that is not magic. Youre going to say that other things have names. Everything has a name, in fact. You’re going to try and use this so called power on an inanimate object. You cant shout glass jar across a room and expect people to all stare at a single glass jar on the shelf.
But what can you do with a jar? Break it? Perhaps cut someone with it? You cant make it do something on its own, obviously. Nor the chair you sit in, nor your bag, or the door. Making an inanimate object do something without touching it, well thats not magic. Thats fiction. Mind powers? Telekinesis? The work of amazing creators. Not real.
You dont understand how often I hear these retorts. You arent going to think of something new to confound me with. But I see that twinkle in your eye. I know what comes next, but you dont.
There is a town buried deep in the alps of western Europe. It holds no loyalty to any of the sovereign nations that are recognised today. If any of them knew the city was there, they would do their best to ensure another state took responsibility for it.
There is something wrong with this city. Something that doesnt fit, that makes it warped from the world that grew around it. The clue, as you might have already guessed is in its name.
Take the nearest city of any note to it, Geneva. A historied place. A place where history was specifically done to it. But theres more to it. It wasnt always called Geneva, in fact, there isnt a single recorded usage of its original name. We know that we dont know it because of references to it later on. Why do you suppose that is? In fact, Geneva is not even close to being its first name. The city is old. Very old. The society that built it no longer exists, in fact some say it never existed. Perhaps. I am not a historian, so I cannot say. But its interesting that both its original name and its original occupants are lost to us.
I can see your brain turning. Youre smart, we both know it. The longer I sit here and speak to you, the quicker you pick up my lessons. You have already guessed the secret of the village in the alps. The one that we all pretend doesnt exist. You are going to say that it still has its original name and youre going to suggest, on top of that, that it is inhabited by the people that may or may not have originally built Geneva.
But therein lies the difficulty of this subject, right? You dont know if I am telling you the truth. Normally you would head out and try to prove or disprove my information from other sources. Rightfully so in fact. But how can you in this case?
No one, except me and others in my privileged position, are willing to testify to its existence. You might ask me to say its name, so that you might look it up directly. But that little itch in your brain says that wont work either, because, as you just said, if no one says its real, there wont be records of it. Which means that I, and my colleagues, actually do not know the name of this town.
And you just said Im making this up. Which everyone who sits where you do says at this point. Some small way further along in this conversation, you are going to find a fork in the road. To the left is the easy way. You leave here, you forget about me and this story and you laugh about it with your friends for a short time before your life comes down on top of you and you forget. There is no shame in that. Its a hard story to believe, Im well aware of that. In fact, your retorts, your back and forth is a lot similar to when I was in your place. But that means nothing, not really. We take different paths even if they appear to be similar. I do not know the chain of events that brought you here anymore than you know mine. But were getting a little lost in the weeds.
The other way down the fork is to believe me. But I dont want to lead you astray, I dont want you to misunderstand me. You cant just say you believe just to see what happens next. To learn more about this town, or Geneva or why a glass jar is not a person. You need to actually believe that names change things.
But more importantly, taking a name changes things. If you take the name of a town and give that town a new name, the town forgets. Think about it, a town, or a city is just a group of people. They live their lives and they imbue their home with that life. They, themselves, are the soul of the place. Collectively, in a manner of speaking, when you invoke the name of a city, you are invoking the name of the entire population that has done something, anything, to make that city feel like its alive. Thats why places like New York City, London, and Sydney feel like they move with you as you exist in them as an outsider. They tolerate tourists, but they dont accept them. But again, weeds. This isnt, really, about that.
We try to make things feel normal. To feel like we know, in our bones, they should feel. We are drawn to old cities, because thats where the most life has been lived, which seems obvious when you think about it. But we never stay. You said you lived in Prague for some months. You wanted to live there, its a beautiful place. But you didnt. You left and you came here. This city is barely 150 years old. Its still an infant, in city terms. There is no life here, nothing substantial at least. And you can feel it. You heard the others, your classmates, when they talked about the soulless architecture in the downtown. Did you stop to think that they may have been talking literally and not realised it?
But back to my town. Its real, and you can believe me or not. It has a name, a name that I cannot say. Because I am not trusted to know it. From what I understand, aside from the people who live there, only two people at any one time know the name. People who, under no circumstances, would abuse it. Who would change it.
People have died over this name. People wanted everyone, the world, to know about it. They had to be stopped. The archduke in 1914. Yes yes, all those comments have been made before too. Call it what you want, there are people out there would rather see the entire world drowned in flames than let this one small town be revealed to everyone.
Such is the power of a single name.
Do you start to see it now? Because you think Im, not wrong, but delusional. Lying to you. For what reason, you cannot state. There is no reason that makes sense. Why would I lie? A prank? There are better ways to embarrass you. Because I get enjoyment out of lying? Im a college professor. My job, my livelihood and my raison d’etre is cemented in passing on the truth to the next generation of adults. Beyond this room, outside of those doors I am a world renowned statistician. I hold three doctorates in various inane fields of boring maths. I teach people who would go further beyond the boundaries that I have pushed myself and I relish that. I demand that.
So why did I bring you here? Why did I take you out of your post-grad bullshit and tell you this story about names and the powers they hold? Because you are a historian. You have a bachelors in something I can never understand. Your post-grad work is in a field of study that is flooded with people trying to do exactly as youre doing. But you still stand out. You made yourself known by taking math classes. For no reason. You arent after another degree while you do post-grad. You just want to learn. You have the itch. Maybe if you scratch it, itll be satisfying. But history isnt doing it. How do I know? Because youre taking statistics. For no reason. Youre bored. You can feel something else out there and you need to know what it is. For now that means stats. History. Tomorrow it might be cartography or music.
It all amounts to the same thing I talked about before. Something is wrong with everything and you can feel it deep within your bones. Something makes you think that you can find a way to change it, maybe even to fix it.
My lad, even that has a name and when you learn it, everything will fall completely into place.