The Importance of Names — Insights from a Nickname Enthusiast

We all know that Donald Trump is a very unconventional American president. Regardless of his political achievements, we cannot deny that his speeches are highly engaging. His persuasive power is discussed in detail in Scott Adams' book, “Win Bigly”, and I find it particularly interesting that he has a penchant for giving his opponents nicknames—he is truly a nickname enthusiast.

For instance, he refers to Hillary as “Crooked Hillary,” and others include “Little Marco,” “Lying Ted,” and “Low-Energy Jeb.” Looking at the following image from Jeb Bush's speech, where the audience appears to be dozing off, I think Trump has a point.

The importance of names is such that they can even determine life and death. A 13-year-old girl from Minnesota, Rachel Ehmke, took her own life after being bullied and called a “slut.” This is not an isolated case; researchers at Syracuse University found that when people use derogatory terms to refer to a certain social group, the suicide rate among that group tends to be higher.

Words can be frightening; when faced with harsh words, we must learn to protect ourselves. There are generally three ways to deal with derogatory terms: the first is to ignore them. Of course, if it were that easy to ignore, we wouldn't need to pay extra attention to them. The second is to eliminate them. For example, Facebook's COO Sheryl Sandberg believes the word “bossy” should be banned. ==Banning a word widely and comprehensively is quite difficult, so there is a third option: to change it. This strategy is common in business, such as when “ValuJet Airlines” was renamed “AirTran Airways” after a series of accidents.==

In addition to these three methods, there is a more advanced approach, and the key is that ==the meaning of a name is not fixed; you can proudly reclaim the use of derogatory terms==. This reclamation can unite members within an organization, and it can even create an exclusive zone. For instance, the term “negro” can be used by Black individuals but not by white individuals; Jeremy Lin can use the ID ChiNkBaLLa88, but ESPN cannot use “chink in the armor.”

Names are a very important weapon; they can harm people or unite them. Israeli researchers conducted an experiment with the same game: when it was called “Community Game,” 72% of participants chose to cooperate, while when it was called “Wall Street Game,” only 33% chose to cooperate.

This ==technique of controlling feelings through names== can be applied in practical work. Researchers at Harvard found that when people face stressful activities like public speaking, singing competitions, or math contests, if they can cheer for themselves and say out loud, “I am excited!” they often achieve their best performance.

The insight here is that ==giving an appropriate name to your inner feelings to channel emotions, rather than avoiding them, is the best way to process and utilize emotions==. If we can correctly understand the source of negative emotions, for example, “I feel angry coming home today because work was really frustrating,” we won't take our bad mood out on friends and family, avoiding actions that would hurt those we care about.