State of the Human: Naming

We name people, places, and things out of necessity, but the labels we choose take on the weight of history, culture, and identity. In this episode, we talk about the names we use, and why they matter.

Transcript for Naming (Full Episode)

Adesuwa Agbonile: [00:00:00] My greatest fear is that, one day, I'll meet the love of my life in a crowded room. And we'll connect. And then right before we both have to go, he'll say, "Wait, what's your name?"

And I'll have to say, "Adesuwa Agbonile."

And he'll say, "What?" And I'll say, "Adesuwa Ag--"

But then it'll be too late, and we'll be like swept apart, and he'll never be able to, like, find me on Facebook. 'Cause he'll be like, "What did she say?"

And if my name was like Susan Smith, that wouldn't really be a problem.

Erin Woo: This is State of the Human, the podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project. Each episode, we take a common human experience, like teaching or breathing or joking, and we bring you stories that explore and deepen our understanding of that experience.

My name is Erin Woo, and the name of this episode is Naming.

Names have power. Rumpelstiltskin can do this, and so does anyone following the debates around what to call professional sports mascots. Naming affects all of us, every single day. Our names are the first pieces of ourselves that we present to the world. They define us, whether we like it or not. And that can feel like a grounding point, or a prison.

Looking outward, names are the first way we understand the world, giving them the ability to illuminate or obscure-- to identify or misdirect.

In this episode, we explore the different powers that names carry: the power of remembrance, the power of [00:02:00] reclamation, and the power of change.

Our first story comes from the spoken word poet Franny Choi, author of the collection Floating, Brilliant, Gone and the chapbook Death by Sex Machine. This is a poem about the way names can tether us, and all of the good and bad that comes from that grounding.

Franny Choi: [Korean]. For my parents, [Korean].

In the first grade, I asked my mother permission to go by Frances at school. At seven years old, I already knew the weight of hearing my name butchered by hammerhead tongues. Already knew to let my salty gook name drag behind me in the sand, safely out of sight.

In fourth grade, I wanted to be a writer and worried about how to escape my surname. Choi is nothing, if not Korean. If not garlic breath, if not seaweed and sesame and food stamps during the lean years. Could I just go by FJC? Could I be paper thin and raceless? Dust jacket and coffee stain, boneless rumor, smoldering behind the curtain, and speaking through an ink-stained puppet? 

My father ran through all his possible re-christenings. Ian, Isaac, Ivan. And we laughed at each one, knowing his accent would always give him away. You can hear the pride in my mother's voice when she answers the phone. "Hello, this is Grace," and it is some kind of strange grace she spun herself. Some lightning made of chain mail. Grace is not her pseudonym, though everyone in my family is a poet.

These are the shields for the names we speak in the dark to remember our darkness, savage death rights we still practice in the new world.

My Korean name is the star my mother cooks into the gue to follow home when I [00:04:00] am lost, which is always in this gray country-- this violent foster home whose streets are paved with shame. This factory yard riddled with bullies ready to steal your skin and sell it back to your mother for profit. Land where they stuff our throats with soil and accuse us of gluttony when we finally learn to swallow it.

I confess, I am greedy. I think I deserve to be seen for what I am: a boundless burning wick, a perfect cord.

I confess, if someone has looked at my crooked spine and called it elmwood, I've accepted. If someone has loved me more for my go name, for my saint name, for my good vocabulary and bad joints, I've welcomed them into this house. I've cooked them each a meal with a star singing at the bottom of the bowl. A secret ingredient to follow home when we are lost. Sunflower oil, blood sausage, or a name, given by your dead grandfather who eventually forgot everything he'd touched.

I promise, I will never stop stealing back what is mine. I promise, I won't forget, again.

Erin Woo: Spoken word poet Franny Choi.

My favorite German word is Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl. There's no one-word equivalent in English, but literally,  Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl translates to "the feeling of belonging together."

This story is about another word that does not quite translate into English. It comes to us from a tiny fishing village called Limol in the Western province of Papua New Guinea. Kate Lindsey, a Stanford graduate student in linguistics, went to Limol to help create the first Ende dictionary.

Kate Lindsey: A crowd has gathered around, waiting for us to introduce ourselves.

Limol Village is one of two villages [00:06:00] that speak the Ende language.

My name is Kate. I'm the first visitor in 20 years, and the first white person that most villagers have seen. It took us almost two weeks to get to Limol. After our two-day flight to Australia, we could take a charter plane to Papua New Guinea.

We boarded a small boat, up the Fly River, down the Victoria River, and drop us off at a footpath, from which we could walk to Limo Village.

And before we started on the hour-long walk to the village, one of the village leaders came up to me and handed me a roasted sweet potato.

I came by invitation from Guama Krupa, one of the leaders in the village. He asked for a linguist to come help write down stories, and to start the first Ende dictionary.

Kate Lindsey, speaking to people in the village: Here, or here? Both. So this are the tail feathers, here?

Ende men: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Kate Lindsey, speaking to people in the village: And this is the under tail right here. And the [speaking in Ende]?

Ende men: [Villagers speaking in Ende.] 

Kate Lindsey: But this type of translation gets much harder when you're talking about a word that you can't point to.

Kate Lindsey, speaking to people in the village: What, what did you talk about when you first met?

Ende woman 1: Yeah, he told me, "I'll-- yeah, I'll get married to you."

Kate Lindsey, speaking to people in the village: That's the first thing he said?

Ende woman 1: Yes. [laughter]

Jenny Dobola: Uh, when we first met, I told him, "I love you. I want you to be my husband because you are a very hard working and good hunter, good killer. And you are a strong man. My life will match with you, and I will live with you." And he also expressed me the same words.

Ende woman 3: The first time I saw him, I told him that "I love you," and himself too, he [00:08:00] said, "I love you." So that's how we got married. We loved each others.

Kate Lindsey, speaking to people in the village: And how do you show each other that you love each other?

Ende woman 3: We loved each other in many ways. The way I look after him, it-- it takes care of me, and him, me too, I take care of him. So that's how we love each others.

What I want-- the what I want, if I want something else from him, if I want him to bring something for me, and I asked him, he also, he brings it for me. So that's how he loves me.

And me, too. If he tells me, "Bring this for me or cook for me," I could do that, do those work for him. And that shows that I love him.

Kate Lindsey, speaking to people in the village: The word love,

Ende woman 4: Maquang.

Kate Lindsey: Maquang doesn't quite mean the same thing as our word for love. In Ende, maquang means survival. And the village survives on the backs of the women.

Jenny Dobola: My mother was very hardworking lady. My mother goes hunting, she kills cassowary. She kill pig, deer, and she bring them to the house. She moved them and she feed me with the meat, and she grew me up.

Me, I look exactly like my mother. How she talks and do everything, it, it's exactly like me.

Kate Lindsey: When the women grew older and they had kids of their own, their mothers would often still help them.

Jenny Dobola: While going fishing, I used to tell Mother, "Oh, you helped me to look after the baby. I'll fish." And she used to follow me. She still look after that small boy at that [sic] place. I still go and fish, throw fishing line, get fish, come back. I still share with her. Gives them fish to eat and ours, too. 

I used to be very happy. When I'm in need, when I don't have any food in the house, and if my sister or my brother's daughters or my sister's daughters-- when they bring me meat or fish to add it in my dry cereal, and I used to be very [00:10:00] happy and I used to thank them.

Ende woman 1: Giving is really big thing. My parents, they said, "You give to her as you will have more blessing."

Kate Lindsey: Robai, whose story we will hear next, she told me that she-- she felt she wasn't able to fully love her children because she couldn't send them to school.

Robai Reend: When I think of the word "love," I love my children and anybody that comes my way. But this love that doesn't really work out. Because in some ways, I don't support my children.

I feed my children with food. With fish. With anything. But to support them in school, and in their clothing, I can't manage that. Because how can I-- where can I get money to support my children?

Kate Lindsey: Next, you'll hear from Jenny. Her father-in-law came back from a long voyage to the city, and he brought with him a laundry dish.

Jenny Dobola: So when this old man brought me this laundry dish, I was very happy. So when I cook food, I always put his plate, too. And when I find something good, I give him a share. And I love it.

Kate Lindsey: This expectation of love extends past the immediate family to all relatives and even the whole village. In fact, it's practically a law in Limol that you must love everyone, even strangers.

I was surprised to learn that the women felt that they must not only love their family and their neighbors, but total strangers like me.

Ende woman 4: When we are coming back from the camping place, the first person we meet on the road, we must not hide anything from them. We share what, what we have had in our bags. Like, if we kill the cassowary or pig meat or deer [00:12:00] in our camp and we are coming back home, if we meet anybody on the road, the first person we meet, we must stop and then share what little we have in that bag.

Come all the way-- if you meet other people too, until you come to that village. And before. Like, when you kill cassowary, it's a big meat. Taste with-- equally share that. Share that meat among everybody in the village.

Kate Lindsey: When I was preparing to come to Limol, I was advised constantly. Bring plenty of gifts. Everyone will expect something from you. But as I learned more about Ende love, I realized that this poor community wasn't hoping to take advantage of a rich, white visitor. No. The Ende's happiest moments are entering the village after a long journey, opening their bags, and sharing their gifts with everyone. And so naturally, when they saw me walk into the village heavy with bags, they assumed that I would also want to open up my bags and share my joy with everyone.

Women came to my house every single day to open their bags for me. They brought fish, yams, sego. And one day, someone brought me a rare and delicious papaya.

For Ende, maquang is giving somebody a sweet potato or a bucket of water. Maquang is when you help other people survive.

Ende woman 5: Lower love means to love my family members in such a way that, when they're in need, I give them food. Yeah, cassava or anything [sic] meat like that.

Ende woman singing: [Singing in Endo.]

Kate Lindsey: When a woman hands me a yam, it's not just a yam.

Ende woman 5: That's what love means-- to share with people.[00:14:00] 

Erin Woo: This story was produced by Kate Lindsey and Jett Hayward and was supported by the Stanford Storytelling Braden Grant.

Identity can be inherited, or it can be built. The name that we were given can feel like a costume. Sometimes, the best thing to do is put on a different costume and take on a new name.

We went to a Furry convention to talk with people dressed as brightly colored and very furry creatures.

Female furry producer: Um, we're, uh, working on a story about fur...

Erin Woo: We ask them to tell us their character names-- their "fursonas" and their human names, and to take us through the space in between.

Furry 1: It's one thing to come out and say, "Hey, mom, I'm gay", versus, "Hey, mom, I think I'm a snow leopard."

Ethan Longtail: Hello, my name is, uh, Ethan Longtail.

Talia: And I'm Talia.

Sling: Yeah, I'm, I'm Sling.

Washi: I'm Washi.

Kiwi: And I'm Kiwi.

Slicker: Um, Slicker. Yeah, that's my cat name.

Trail Horse: Trail Horse. That's usually what I go by. Um, I also go by Hoofers on Twitter.

Mizu: I am Mizu. I am a water dragon.

Rascal Jackal: So my name is Rascal Jackal.

Male furry producer: Okay.

Rascal Jackal: My species is Jackal. Canis Lupus. Native to Central Africa.

Trippy Collie: Trippy Collie was based on the fact that I chose all the traits that people wouldn't recognize for a border collie...

Furiosa: Furiosa is just the [unclear] name of of my, my main dog.

The Playful: The Playful [unclear] is that the Playful [unclear] doesn't talk.

Zayak: Zayak. She has everything, pretty much Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook...

Fuji Maru Husky: I'm Fuji Maru Husky. Uh, I combine the words Fuji from Mount Fuji.

Male furry producer: Mm-hmm.

Fuji Maru Husky: 'Cause I've been there hiking up there in my [00:16:00] first suit. And Maru from Shishimaru, who is my favorite anime character ever.

Hiking up there in suit was absolutely amazing. In fact, uh, Mount Fuji on Twitter followed me back. The head was actually a carry on, believe it or not.

Both furry producers: Wow.

Fuji Maru Husky: The rest was checked. They let me carry my head in. It was really awesome.

At first, it was a little weird. I got one or two stairs from like normal people. But after that, like people were joining in with the fun. They would-- they wanted to take pictures. They wanted me to sit beside them. I got bumped up to first class.

I have, of course, the crown to show that I rule all huskies and just about everything else. Uh, I have my lightning blue eyes. I have this beautiful pink fur with a lovely white to accent it. My favorite bandana, which is all star and glittery. And then, of course, my skirt to show my affiliation with dogs, with a big red bone on the very middle. And a squeaker in my tail.

I think even without all of this, I'd still be very much Fuji Maru, only without the-- the only thing would be without the name. I, I am Fuji Maru, inside and out. I'm super princessy. I believe that the ground is for lesser mortals. I should be carried everywhere. This is just a way to amplify that.

David: Um, it almost makes you want to be someone you're not. Then you're kind of picking who you want to be. But I mean, every morning, I wake up and I'm David, and I have to do David things and pay David bills and all that sort of thing. So Furry's kind of an escape, a good escape for that.

I left Ohio to come to California because a lot of my friends moved out here. A lot of furries moved to the Bay Area in the late '90s, so I would probably still be in Ohio, farming. I was a farmer.

Trail Horse: Okay, uh, my typical name is Trail Horse. I don't know, I, I [00:18:00] sort of connected with hoofed animals, like I, I'm not like a predator type. I'm more, like, you know, I want to do my own thing, and I don't want to like, you know, go and attack people.

Or, 1998 I joined the Air Force. And I was afraid of anyone discovering it. You know, like in the military, it's so macho.

Male furry producer: Yeah.

Trail Horse: Like everybody has to be, uh, like super sexual with women, you know, all the guys. And, um, if you're not, like they immediately suspect you. I definitely couldn't tell 'em about Furry or anything, you know.

Like I call myself Trail Horse because I love trail riding and I used-- I, I even would like get off work when I was in the Air Force and go trail riding, like after work. And it was just the most awesome experience, uh, to be able to do that.

Life is short. And you need to go out and have fun and not take life too seriously. Like, go out and have fun and try to make other people happy. That's what I love.

Zayak: I was born like five minutes away from an aquarium and the ocean. I always, when I was little, I always got the-- I had the annual pass and I just went every, like every other Sunday, or like, almost every Sunday.

My persona is Zayak. She is a beef shark. She likes fish, swimming, um, music-- EDM, more specifically in that genre. And, what else does she like? She likes a lot of things. She doesn't like oil companies.

She has everything, pretty much: Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook. Yeah, I don't have one for me. I changed what I have to her. Because she is basically me. I don't really have to worry much about trying to be someone that I'm not. Uh, I don't feel like male, and it's like, she, I can be... [00:20:00] transgender. She is almost basically me.

Ethan Longtail: Okay. I am a sea otter hybrid. A hybrid with a dunkle osterus, kind of a prehistoric sea creature.

Talia: And I'm just an Asian dragon. Walk around, i'm a noodle. So.

Ethan Longtail: Well, it's just a real friendly sea otter hybrid, you know, gotta crack open clams and get all the goodness on the inside and gotta love cracking open my tummy. You know, sea otter stuff.

Talia: And, um, well, Talia, really funny story. When I first got the suit, it was a happy head. Like the expression was a really happy smile. But the character herself, she's a sort of like really punk, edgy sort of character. Doesn't really like anyone.

I loved dragons. And I was like, "You know what? Like, I want to be that cool." So that's why I chose the dragon.

Female furry producer: How do you guys know each other?

Talia: Actually, um, he's my boyfriend. Mm-hmm. And we've known each other for about, um--

Ethan Longtail: about six months now.

Talia: Six months.

Ethan Longtail: Yeah.

Talia: We just started dating the, like this con weekend. Yeah. We knew each other online. We had been interacting and stuff. And then, you know, we decided, hey, like we're not that far from each other. So we met up here at this convention, we got official and all that sort of stuff.

Ethan Longtail: Mm-hmm.

Cameron Tenner: Nice.

Female furry producer: Oh, how's that been so far?

Talia: It's been awesome.

Ethan Longtail: It's been wonderful.

Talia: It's honestly like, sometimes dating can be really hard, especially in the fandom, finding people that aren't like, kind of crazy, you know?

Ethan Longtail: Yeah.

Feather: It's a bit on like drag on crack because there are some suits wandering around and they're like $5,000 to $7,000 because of the fur used, because of the materials used. There are people--

Furry 2: Not to mention the time that's put into making them. Forget the cost of the product. It's the time.

Furry 3: And some are even animatronic. There's a gentleman walking around and he can blink, he can snarl, he can open his mouth and stick his tongue out and wiggle his ears and just, that's amazing. Yeah.

Feather: And the level of craftsmanship, uh, at a Furry convention compared to [unclear] and anime convention-- here you have people trying to make a mental ideal. So it can be as unique and as [00:22:00] distinct and different as you can possibly want. When you're cosplaying a character from a show, you're only going to get as good as you possibly can trying to replicate what is drawn. For instance, an iconic character like Sonic or Link, you can only go so far in expressing in your individuality while maintaining that character.

My persona is named Feather, and she is the combination of a, a house cat with absidian markings-- but is where like, general house cat type face-- and a Eurasian Eagle owl. And that's where I pull all of my color bases from. Because if you've seen a Eurasian Eagle, they have these bright gold eyes, and all these gorgeous like browns and reds and whites and blacks.

Um, I've always had, a love of cats and a love of owls, but I'm like, "I can't really pick. I love them both. Let's smash them together, super [sic] style and create something new."

This character is a lot more charismatic and cheerful and outgoing than I am, and I try and pretend that I'm her, even though I'm not wearing a suit while I'm at conventions, so that I can be, like, that forward and that friendly. 'Cause otherwise I'll be all like quiet and shy and hide in the corner until I know who you are, and then I'll talk to you.

Um, so it's just-- I guess a method of play acting to try and become the person that I want to be. And a character like this, wearing a mask, so no one knows who I am currently, allows me to train myself and develop into who I want to become eventually.

Just more of who I could have been if my childhood had been different. And slowly, I'm able to erase the terribleness that happened in my childhood by being Feather and learning to be comfortable with myself.

Erin Woo: That story was produced by Cameron Tenner, Adesuwa Agbonile, Hannah Nguyen, and Claudia Heymach.

In today's political world, it's possible that no one knows the power of naming better than the Donald himself, President Donald J. Trump.

Remember Crooked Hillary, Low Energy Jeb, and Little Rocket Man?

And now the story of another name, another campaign slogan. Where a Stanford sophomore [00:24:00] tries to make the mascot Indian again.

Automated voice: To run for mascot, there are four rules. Rule one--

Woman introducing Donald J. Stump: the next tree of Stanford University--

Automated voice: Don't light yourself or anyone else on fire.

Woman introducing Donald J. Stump: Donald J. Stump.

Erin Woo: The tree is the unofficial mascot of Stanford University. Every year, the marching band holds a grueling competition to select the new tree. For two weeks, candidates design and perform their own stunts to set their potential tree apart from the forest. The nuttier the stunt, the more they get noticed.

Donald J. Stump: Stanford, when USC sends its people they're not sending... Oskie's gonna interfere with Tree Week. They say Stump is colluding with Oskie. It's fake news, people...

Erin Woo: That's Dahkota Brown, Stanford sophomore, tuba player, and Tree Week sprout. For his campaign, Dahkota is calling himself--

Dahkota Brown: Donald J. Stump.

Donald J. Stump: We need somebody that will literally take this mascot and make it Indian again. We can do that. So ladies and gentlemen, I'm officially running to be the first Native tree of Stanford University.

Automated voice: Rule two. Don't do anything that can or should put you in the hospital.

Erin Woo: I'm with Dahkota on Stanford's White Plaza, right in the middle of campus.

Dahkota, as Donald J. Stump is wearing a white polo shirt and khakis, along with an upside-down American flag pin and a bright orange spray tan.

Students whiz by on their bikes, trying to avoid tourists, but no one can avoid the smell.

Dahkota Brown: I had pie tins that were filled with manure, so like cow pies, and that I let people throw at me.

Donald J. Stump: There's pies on the table!

Erin Woo: And, there it is. Other people are holding long, crayon-shaped water guns filled with--

Dahkota Brown: cow manure and water. Um, and I let them spray me with that through like, uh, squirt guns. 

Donald J. Stump and random man: Y'all, grab some pies, let's go. Come on! This is-- come fertilize Donald Stump! Yeah, come on. 

Dahkota Brown: It was really [00:26:00] inspired by the Twitter [expletive] storm that we see every day. 

Erin Woo: One would think that in the heart of Silicon Valley, there would be a more techy, less [expletive] way to mock a Twitter campaign.

Dahkota Brown: I'm just out here trying to prove myself. Um, and so a, a lot of the times it'll be crazy stunts that people would never do. No one would willingly let people cover them in cow manure, but, you know, it's part of my mission to become tree. There's been 40 Stanford trees and not one has identified as Native.

Erin Woo: For years, though the Stanford mascot was an Indian.

Dahkota Brown: One of our very first football coaches here was Pop Warner. Pop Warner actually used to coach at a Indian boarding school. 

Erin Woo: The Carlisle Indian Industrial School. There, he created many of the tactics that have since become essential to football today. Eventually, after coaching jobs at various colleges, 

Dahkota Brown: he transferred over here to Stanford.

Um, they created the Indian mascot to honor Pop Warner, um, who was a white guy that coached football. 

Erin Woo: The mascot was your standard issue caricature of an Indian. Big nose, long braids, and two feathers sticking straight up behind his head. The Stanford mascot remained the official mascot until--

Dahkota Brown: There was a really big push in the seventies by Native students on campus to remove the mascot.

Erin Woo: Since 1972, Stanford has not had an official mascot. The tree is technically the mascot of the marching band. 

Automated voice: Rule three, do not get arrested. This means no nudity.

Donald J. Stump: Thank you for coming to the Miss Stanford Pageant 2018. Hello. 

Erin Woo: Dahkota's final stunt is a Miss Stanford Pageant, modeled after Trump's Miss Universe Pageant. Donald J. Stump, dressed in a truly unforgettable American flag Speedo, is the only competitor in the beauty pageant. 

Donald J. Stump: Unfortunately, they all dropped out. [00:28:00] Um, they, uh, said I was a nightmare to work with, 

Erin Woo: which includes a swimsuit competition, 

Donald J. Stump: American flag inspired, uh, swimsuit by American Eagle. Uh, truly lovely brand. Uh, I hope you appreciate it. My goodness. Strike a pose.

Erin Woo: Speeches-- 

Man giving a speech: Donald, when he's not busy golfing or infringing on basic human rights, he's always drinking Diet Coke and listening to North Korean children choirs.

Erin Woo: The talent portion, in which he belly flops off a ladder into a kiddie pool filled with six inches of jello, directly underneath which is very hard concrete.

Crowd clapping: Woo!

Dahkota Brown: I am Miwok. I'm from the Wilton Rancheria here in California. Obviously, I don't wanna bring back the old mascot, the old caricature. I don't want us to be called the Stanford Indians again, but as a Native student, being the first Native tree.

Erin Woo: Already, Dahkota's done a lot of work 

Dahkota Brown: to remove Native mascots.

I helped pass a bill here in California that makes it illegal for schools to use the racial slur Redskins as mascot. Um, so that's the California, um, Racial Mascot Bill, um, or Act, now. 

Erin Woo: As true, his goal would be to bring 

Dahkota Brown: awareness to the Native community on a bigger platform, while still being able to rock out and have a good time.

Erin Woo: Each year, new trees are in charge of creating their own costume, which ranges from a traditional pine tree, to variants like palm trees, magnolias, and weeping willows. 

Dahkota Brown: And if chosen, I would really want to bring in like my roots, like no pun intended.

Some of the trees that are like really important to my tribal community are the oak tree and redwood tree. And so thinking about doing either one of those for my tree design and then reaching out to Native artists, asking if they'd be willing to send me different fabrics and prints, um, that I could incorporate into my costume. Showcase Native artists. Really, my main mission is to [00:30:00] become the first Native tree.

Automated voice: Rule four, don't end band. It's the tree's job to end band. And you're not the [expletive] tree yet. 

Erin Woo: So, when will we know who the [expletive] tree is? 

Dahkota Brown: Whenever it's decided who the new tree will be, it's uh, kinda like the coronation, um, if you will, where they'll put on the tree for the, uh, first time and dance around at the men's basketball game officially as the Stanford tree.

One of the things that we've been reminded of, um, by past trees is you don't become tree. You are tree. If I'm not able to prove that this year, you know, I, I will be a little disappointed, but if not chosen, I was a member of band before Tree Week. I'll be a member of band after Tree Week. I'll still very much, you know, have my Native identity and my Native community. I'm not gonna stop being Native.

Erin Woo: The new mascot of the Stanford Band was officially announced at the game against Washington State.

For the 2018-19 school year, Dahkota Brown will make the mascot Indian again.

That story was produced by me, Erin Woo.

For generations, Melina Walling's family defined itself by a single place and a single number. Number 2 was the sun at the center of their solar system. But what happens when a star collapses? What happens to the family, now that its namesake is gone?

Grandma Shantha: So, um,

Melina Walling: I have a lot of relatives.

Grandma Shantha: We number about, uh, close to a hundred by now, I think.

Uh, my oldest brother, Dore. Uh, my brother, uh, Ramasami... Sumitra, sister, we call her Sumi, for short... Anapurna, Leila, Malti. Um, I [00:32:00] think I've stopped counting.

Melina Walling: This is my grandma. 

Grandma Shantha: Yeah, my name is Shantha, and I'm 73 years old, and I'm talking to my granddaughter, uh, Melina right now.

Is there anything specific that you would like for me to talk to you about?

Melina Walling: I wanted her to tell me about the house. I grew up listening to her tell me about it. The place where she and her nine siblings spent their childhood. It was a beautiful Victorian built in Bangalore, India in the 1800s. 

Grandma Shantha: Uh, there was a big gate to the entrance to the house, and then there was a veranda.

There were four wicker chairs. The wicker chairs were actually made by my mother, uh, by her own hand.

We had a big backyard where there were lots of coconut trees and mango trees and, uh, fig trees...

Melina Walling: The address was  Number Two, Fifth Main Road, Chamrajpet, Bangalore. A shingled, two-story house, surrounded by dirt roads and open land.

By the time my great-grandfather moved into this house, he and my great-grandmother already had six children. They would go on to have four more.

Grandma Shantha: Eventually, uh, as the family grew older and became more and more, there were so many of them, people just started, uh, calling it "Number Two Family."

My brother often gives an example of all of us being as, uh-- even though we were 10 children, it's very similar to the nine planets.

Melina Walling: And house at Number Two was the sun of that solar system, the central place around which all the siblings and their families orbited for the better part of 70 years.

That house has seen my family change a lot. My grandma's earliest memories of it are from when she was a little kid in the '40s and '50s.

Grandma Shantha: Inside the house, it was very peaceful, highly disciplined, very much loved by my parents. We had a clock in our [00:34:00] house, and it would chime nine, and uh, it was like the Westminster Abby chime. Then we would all walk up nine o'clock sharp.

It was like the Sound of Music, marching to the kitchen.

Melina Walling: One by one, my great-grandfather arranged for his children to be married.

Grandma Shantha: My father was able to marry off all the 10 children.

Melina Walling: Then, like the fabric of space expanding, the family began to grow, ever outward. Some of the siblings, including my grandma, came to America and started new families there, hence my very American accent. Others moved to different parts of India like Mysore or New Delhi, and still others went far afield.

Grandma Shantha: Saudi Arabia.

Melina Walling: Malaysia.

Grandma Shantha: Tennessee or Las Vegas.

Melina Walling: Hong Kong,

Grandma Shantha: New York,

Melina Walling: Italy,

Grandma Shantha: New Jersey. All these places that have, we have lived.

Melina Walling: The years passed. The dirt road got paved houses and shops sprang up, getting closer and closer to the house. Lorries and auto rickshaws replaced horse carts and ox carts. All the while, there were spirited badminton games in the backyard, always with plenty of players. There were festivals where my great-grandmother would light the candles in the prayer room, surrounded by small statuettes and colorful powders. And, there were always arguments.

Grandma Shantha: The nine planets often don't align all at the same time. For the Number Two family, it's very similar to that. You don't know when one is closer to one person, or when one is not closer to one person, or when the three of them gang up against the other two.

Melina Walling: There were arguments where two siblings wouldn't talk to each other for days at a time.

There were arguments with the in-laws and about the in-laws.

There were weddings, funerals, and births. And those births [00:36:00] eventually made way for a new generation to find their way home. New satellites launched into a giant solar system.

Smitha Walling: Coming from the airport, whenever we would land in Bangalore, especially when I was young, we would pull up, and these gates would open. It was very oddly our form of Buckingham Palace. 

Melina Walling: That's my mom. She grew up visiting Number Two every summer. At first, it was her favorite time of year, a time to see her cousins and buy new Indian clothes at the market. When she started to grow up though, she saw things differently. 

Smitha Walling: It's just-- it was huge in my mind. And as I got older, I would go back and I remember thinking, "Really? Is this what it looks like?"

Melina Walling: The Victorian at Number Two, Fifth Main Road was over a hundred years old, and it needed a lot of attention. 

Smitha Walling: So my grandparents, you know, they were aging, and you almost suddenly started to see the cracks in the, in the home, literally and figuratively. 

Melina Walling: When my great-grandfather died, something changed. 

Smitha Walling: My grandfather died in that home. Uh, in 1987. I was a freshman in college, and I rushed back there. It didn't feel like the same house. It was sort of like the end of an era.

Melina Walling: By the time I visited Number Two in 2012, the house was a shell of its former self. Crammed between two apartment buildings, it looked out of place in a city transformed by a tech boom. It was dirty, poorly lit, and noisy. We slept under mosquito nets, even inside the bedrooms. My grandma's sister Sumi and her husband were the only ones living in the house at that point. It was no longer the central hub connecting far-flung families. It was a fading sun in an expanding galaxy. 

Grandma Shantha: We don't live there anymore at all, except for one sister, Sumi. 

Melina Walling: The siblings started arguing, like usual.

Grandma Shantha: So they felt like, uh, "Why should she be the only one, uh, [00:38:00] to get the whole, uh, house when we are 10 children, when it should be for everybody."

Melina Walling: Some wanted to just sell the house and split the money-- to take advantage of the rapidly urbanizing Bangalore. My grandma suggested turning Number Two into a historic site or a museum.

Grandma Shantha: That that's when some of the siblings started talking about it and they said, "We should all get a piece of this. We should all get a piece of this." And so they said, "How are we gonna do that?"

Melina Walling: This is when my grandma's siblings began to talk about a new plan. Maybe Number Two should be knocked down. Rebuilt into apartments. Reformed to fit the image of a new India, of a new family landscape. 

Grandma Shantha: They all felt that, uh, it was more like an asset that had to be divided among all the 10 children.

Smitha Walling: And so they got to a point about five years ago, where they felt pretty strongly they needed to give everybody an equal portion of the house by building flats.

Melina Walling: The idea was to tear the house down, and then, build an apartment complex in its place. One apartment for each of the 10 siblings and a few extras to spare.

My grandma fought against the idea.

Grandma Shantha: There were many, many arguments. It's going to be 10 different people living there. It's not gonna be just one Number Two anymore. Who's gonna be responsible? Who will be in charge of all of this?

Melina Walling: These conversations happened over email for the most part. And conversations turned into disputes-- angry phone calls from the other side of the globe. Discussions that lasted for years. Though, in my family, "discussion" is often a euphemism for "fight."

Smitha Walling: Oh my goodness gracious. It was a nightmare, kind of watching them go through this process.

Melina Walling: Finally, by a majority vote, the siblings hired a builder to begin thinking through designs.

Smitha Walling: There was one sibling who took charge of dealing with the builder.

Grandma Shantha: We had to give power of attorney to one of my [00:40:00] brothers so that he could sign everything on our behalf. Then the rest of us, uh, agreed to build the apartment.

Melina Walling: And the builders showed up one day to knock down Number Two. Some family members even came to India to personally wield sledgehammers. There are pictures of them smiling in the rubble, wearing hard hats.

Grandma Shantha: That's where I was born, that's where I was raised, and that's where I grew up.

A part of it was, uh, uh, broken from my heart.

Melina Walling: I've seen the new apartments. They have marble floors, modern plumbing, kitchens with granite countertops. The builder got three. Great Uncle Dore opted out and took a sum of money instead of his apartment. And the other nine siblings each got one for themselves.

But after all that, the family doesn't even really live there.

All but one rent their apartments out to strangers.

Grandma Shantha: Of the nine siblings, only one lives in that apartment. The rest of it is all rented. So it was a big waste.

Smitha Walling: The amount that she cried over the conversations and the things people were saying and doing about building this house.

Grandma Shantha: I have had many houses. I still have many houses, but there's not one place that I can call it home. The only home that I'd really kind of still feel is Number Two. 

Melina Walling: Number Two meant everything to my grandma. It was the center of her solar system. But something held those spinning planets in place before they ever moved in. And it still seems to be holding them together, now that the house at Number Two, Fifth Main Road is gone.

My grandma emailed me a black-and-white photo of the 10 siblings surrounding their parents in front of the house.

There are six [00:42:00] girls in sarees sitting crisscross in the front, and four boys standing in the back, wearing white button downs and slacks. You can't really see anything of the house, but part of a toweled roof and a blank white wall. But my grandma sent the picture to me with the caption "Number Two," the address of the house.

This is how we talk about ourselves. The words "Number Two" sometimes still refer to a street address, but usually they're shorthand for the family itself.

Grandma Shantha: The house is not there, but the number is still there. With all these 10 children and their spouses, and their children and their grandchildren. Uh, "Number Two" became-- it, it got its own personality.

Smitha Walling: It's a legacy. It's a history. It's a really interesting bunch of stories. I mean, it's a force-- Number Two is a force. I mean, you know. Uh, what can one say other than, you know, I am proud to be part of that force. 

Grandma Shantha: Number Two, Fifth Main Road, Chamrajpet, Bangalore.

There's something about this Number Two that cannot be explained. Maybe you can figure it out. You probably have to sit with me for another hundred days.

Erin Woo: That story was produced by Melina Walling and Jett Hayward.

What happens when the name you were born with no longer fits? Do you hold onto it, or do you find something new?

In our final story produced by Jett Hayward and myself, a Stanford senior faces this exact choice.

Finn Sonder: Wow. I haven't done this before. Um. If I had to introduce Daisy...

Daisy is a person who existed from the ages [00:44:00] zero to 21. Uh, Daisy is a girl. Daisy is feminine. Daisy wears a lot of leggings, um, and really likes to go cycling at the gym.

Daisy is someone who, um, has a lot of social anxiety, but also loves to push herself to go out and party. Daisy is someone who has always been attracted to, um, kinda like the rough and tumble, like the rugby, the ultimate frisbees of life.

Um, and at the same time, has always found immense comfort in crocheting and knitting and, you know, watching The Bachelor on television.

Um, yeah, so my name is Finn Sonder. I'm majoring in biology here at Stanford University, and I use either they/them or he/him pronouns.

My full birth name is Daisy Fionnuala McKim. I grew up in Central California, near Sacramento. Um, and my family is Catholic, identifies as conservative. Um, I grew up going to church and Sunday school every single week.

About a year ago, I started replaying all of my childhood through my, through my mind's eye, just reliving all these, like, crushes on girls that I had, that I never processed as crushes. Um, they, you know, I just, there were girls that I really admired in middle school, um, that were totally actually just me crushing really hard on people.

I hated wearing dresses as a kid. I would try to, you know, sneak out to school wearing soccer shorts and a t-shirt every day in elementary school. I, I have this memory too, of just going camping with my family and having camping be the only time as a kid that I was ever myself. And I called my parents on the phone, and I said, "Hey, I think I'm bi or something. I don't really know, but I'm not straight."

My identity kind of morphed from this, like being like, "I think I'm like [00:46:00] maybe bi, like maybe I'm attracted to girls, maybe..." to like all of a sudden, like a couple weeks later, I was like, "Nope, I'm full on like a lesbian." And then a couple months after that I was like, "Nope, I'm not even a girl. So, hold on."

I've only been out as trans for a little over six months.

When I started thinking about choosing a new name for myself, the first people I told were close friends, and I kind of, you know, expressed, "Oh, I'm considering changing my name, or like, you know, identifying with they/them pronouns." And I was really confused because I didn't know how I was gonna subtly do that. Like there-- it doesn't really seem like there's a, a simple or like a baby step way to all of a sudden change the thing that everyone calls you all the time. Until, I realized, that every time you go to a coffee shop, the barista asked for your name.

Um, this past summer, I was at a cafe almost every single day for lunch. And I don't drink coffee. I hate coffee. But I would go and I would order a drink. And I would just give them a different name every day-- a name that I had tried out or thought maybe could fit with me.

I would have to wait like two or three times for the barista to call my name, 'cause I just would forget what name I had given. And that's kind of, that's how I actually settled into my, my chosen name is the day that I used Finn as my name. It just felt so right, and I just, I knew.

So my middle name, Fionnuala, is actually where Finn, my chosen name comes from.

I have an uncle who, I don't know, I used to play rough with a lot as a kid. He's like a rugby dude, and he used to call me Finn, for short. But there was something about him calling me Finn that always felt really comfortable and really nice and validating and masculine. And I think in a way, choosing Finn as my chosen, as my chosen name was a way to stay somewhat connected to the name that I was given as a kid. And at the same time, reclaim a lot of the masculinity that I didn't feel free to express as a kid.[00:48:00] 

I'm the first genderqueer person my family's ever met. I got a really interesting reaction-- I, not one that I was expecting. And I didn't quite get like, "you can't be trans, of course you're a girl," you know, or, "of course you're a boy," vice-versa. I got, "sure, like this is a phase that our kid is going through, and like, that's fine." And for me, like it almost-- it almost feels like it would've been easier to deal with my family's reaction had it been more kind of like stark and one-minded, um, in terms of its opposition.

But... yeah, it's, it's been hard to-- it's just been hard, I think to, to get people to take me serious, back in my home life. Um, 'cause I think to them, this feels really sudden and really drastic. Whereas to me, this feels like the most natural transition in the world. It was like, of course, like of course I'm kind of a boy, kind of a girl, kind of somewhere in between-- my, you know, my gender isn't my sex.

And so for me, the first couple weeks of using Finn as my chosen name were interesting. Um, I, I misgendered myself a lot. I still do that sometimes. And I would misname myself. And so when I got to introduce myself in the beginning of the year, in autumn, I was Finn.

It wasn't just that I would introduce myself as Finn to someone. There was this unspoken, "Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Finn. I'm not Daisy." And so for me, a lot of transitioning has not been about adjusting to using my chosen name. But it's actually been adjusting to like, being comfortable again with my birth name. Um, and being able to talk about Daisy and being able to relive Daisy's experiences and things like that, and, and not having that feel painful or repetitive or, um, traumatic in any way. Having that be a part of my experience as Finn is having this past life as Daisy.

If Daisy had to introduce Finn, Daisy would [00:50:00] say, "Don't, don't take too much meaning from how masculine Finn is."

I think Daisy would find like a lot of light and a lot of hilarity in how masculine Finn tries to be sometimes. But I think Daisy would also introduce Finn as someone who is really sensitive, is surprisingly feminine in a lot of ways, and, as someone who, you know, is just like any other 22-year-old boy in this world.

Erin Woo: You've been listening to State of the Human, the podcast of the Stanford Storytelling Project. This episode was produced by Jett Hayward, Cameron Tenner, Adesuwa Agbonile, Melina Walling, Jake Warga, Hannah Nguyen, Claudia Heymach, Alec Glassford, and me, Erin Woo.

For their generous financial support, we'd like to thank the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, the Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Stanford Arts, and Bruce Braden.

You can find this and every episode of State of the Human through our website, storytelling.stanford.edu.