HELLO, MY NAME IS…
It’s so important for every person to return the Census information so that they are counted. Your name counts! It’s important for you, for our state, and our nation.
A census worker came to an unpretentious house. When he knocked on the door, he was greeted by a weary mother. He said, “Lady, I want to know how many there are in this family. How many children do you have?”
“Well…” she said in a leisurely fashion, “there’s Johnny, and Mary, and Charles, and…”
“No, no, no,” interrupted the census taker impatiently. “I don’t want to know their names, just the number.”
The lady replied indignantly, “They ain’t got numbers. They all got names!”
A name is so important. Everybody gets one. Last year, American babies were given 1,100 brand new names that hadn’t appeared in data before. There were a lot of unique names given. On March 27, 2020, a couple in India gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl. They named them “Corona” and “Covid.” Now, those are names that nobody will forget.
Billionaire Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk and his girlfriend, electronic musician Grimes, have a newborn son. While they weren’t sure the name would be accepted by California officials (and I understand it was not), they named him X Æ A-12. One new mother said that she would name her new infant MNLEFXZP, in honor of his father. When asked if the baby’s father was Polish, the mother replied, “No, he’s an optometrist!” Remember Johnny Cash’s hit song – “A Boy Named Sue?”
Some interesting names have popped up in politics. Recently, the Democratic representative, Paul Ruiz, of CA was challenged by Republican Paul Ruiz. Same name – the Republican Ruiz brags that he is 57, which is 10 years his opponent’s senior, and he had the name first.
Recently, in Arizona, a congressional candidate changed his name to Cesar Chavez in order to appeal to Hispanic voters. He was formerly known as Scott Firstler, but he had lost two previous elections as a Republican. He changed his name and his political party. The candidate said he wanted “a name people can feel comfortable with.”
Today’s culture can create challenges with names. A New Jersey woman’s name is Alexa Seary. That sounds just like the two most popular virtual assistants – Amazon Echo’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. She’s 21 years old and claims that coworkers order her around as if she was a soulless machine. She’s tired of hearing “Siri, do this. Siri, do that. Alexa, get this.”
Covid, Inc. is a successful Arizona-based manufacturer of audiovisual cables. When the World Health Organization named this coronavirus COVID-19, it greatly affected that business.
We had no choice in the name we received. We have every choice in what it comes to mean. “A good name is more important than riches” (Prov. 22:1) We should protect our name. A name is something that we pass on to our children. We need to be very careful to protect the reputation of our name.
I am blessed that so many people in my family in the past made the name Mathison a good name. It was always known in communities as the names of people who were God-fearing, honest, excellent citizens, and church members, and people who had a positive influence. I’m blessed to have that name.
The most important thing is that my name “is in the Book of Life.” (Phil 4:3)
