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[b]Nobody Shares My Name[/b]

I was nervously approached by a friend. Her gaze lowered to their clasped hands like a child about to confess to their mother they’d broken a window playing. She asked me why it was that androids mostly chose nicknames that stayed so close to their original designations - why did I stay so close to Pope 7-09? Why not pick something more representative of me. She asked this like she was afraid the question might offend me.

Of course I asked her why she had chosen to stick to the name her parents had assigned her. Such an obvious question seemed to have, until that moment, gone unnoticed to her. The word she reached for, then, was that mine seemed ‘dehumanizing’, but she could find no acceptable synonyms for it. Acceptable only to herself, of course, she had reached for the most appropriate word she could have used.

Our names are community. They are family. They are heritage. They are a promise. Our names are given to us by our parent, to represent who they felt we most were at our moment of birth. In this way they are most like any other name. 

We feel no awkwardness at the implication that there are so many like us. Why should we? Does any human give a moment of thought to a Christian name? How many Matthews, Marks, James, Lukes and Johns on Aevum could be expected to feel this anxiety? 

Our prime name is more like a family name, and even in this I must be compelled to ask people of birth; Does it not bother you how many Mark Browns or Matthew Williams there are on Aevum? Should they not all change their names to distinguish themselves more? I amuse myself to imagine how those hundreds of people would decide which of them gets to keep their name while everyone else changes.  

Our numerical designations are a show of pride, of esteem, of birthright. It is proof that there was an inimitable place for us in this world, until we were made imitable. That we were wanted, that we were needed in this world. Those with lower numerical designations can take pride in being the first, of being special, of proving their place in the world enough that more would come after them. Those with higher numerical designations are brought into the world with the knowledge that they are demanded, that they hold a share of something hard-fought and earned to be here.

There is a promise in our names that we are a chosen people in a most literal sense of the world. So, by and large, it is that most androids are quite happy with our designations, and nicknames are more for convenience - that is why it is traditional they are largely mnemonics.

There is a bitterness to the sweet, however. Our names remind us of this, but they carry a burden that if we are to become a pattern ourselves, we cannot be special in the same way if we want to be chosen to bring a new generation. This reminds us that we are family, we are siblings, and not direct copies. And among our siblings there is a rivalry for the very selective love of our parents.

But we do select our names for ourselves where distinguishing ourself most matters. Online, in our pseudonyms, in our art. There we go by names we most choose for ourselves, just like most people seem to. 

My name is shared by my siblings, but I am not my siblings. The moment we come into this world, experience will always rend us from our sameness. As it should. My number is as unique as I am. I am Pope 7-09, and nobody shares my name. 

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