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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27536
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27536
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A name is not actually an invariant property of a person or object. A name is an expression of the relationship between a person and another or between a person and an object. Thus the same person may be "mom", "grandma", "aunty", "Joan", "Joanie", "Joan Smith", "Mrs. Smith", "the woman in the green dress", "Smitty", "Junebug", and "234 782 189" in relationship to different people and institutions.

Pretty much every modern state assigns its citizens a serial number these days (in Canada we call it a Social Insurance Number), so a state which takes no interest in the subject;s names other than the serial number is not really so far from reality. But people will still acquire names based on other relationships. Names are fundamental to language and our relationships with the world. We can claim and project a name, and we often do, but people will assign a name to us for their own purposes, or select from the variety of names we project. The fact that that people in your story are not assigned a name by the state would actually make little difference to the process by which people assign names to things or accept the names that people claim for themselves.

Original score: 3