Subject Formation

I was recently at an engagement party for my husband's co-worker. The tone of the party was informal, the party planners had ordered Italian take-out, and there were kids and adults spilling drinks in almost every room. Actually, it was a strange mixture of people, conversations were scattered and often forced.

A quiet woman in a brilliant green shirt looked even more uncomfortable than the rest of us. I couldn’t easily identify what caused her insecurity but her presence made me feel like I was in Junior High. I felt compelled to right my former pre-teen wrongs and befriend her.

“Hi. What’s your name?”

“Allyson.” We shake hands. Formally.

My name is Mara.

She responded, “Really?" Pause. Then she looked directly into my eyes and coldly said, "Mara means bitter, doesn’t it?”

And suddenly as if the party no longer existed, I said rather slowly, “Yes. It does. How did you know that?” (Usually only ardent Bible readers make the association with the verse in Ruth, “And she said unto them, Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.”).

She responded, “I read baby name books a lot.”

When I was young, I was told that my name was Hebrew for Mary, a monicer replete with positive associations (at least for some). I was also told that my whole name ,Mara Lise was a translation of Mary Elizabeth, one that could easily fit into the British novels that I fancied. My name had always seemed both positive and “normal,” good traits for a name.

Mara, as I have since learned, is not the direct translation of Mary, but its negative version, the “other’ side of the binary. Mary/Mara. And, if differences are how humans create and interpret meaning, then the last letter of my name changes it from one associated with the mother of God to one associated with Naomi’s hardship, with her bitter fate.

What’s in a name? Apparently everything.