The article separates the name a person was given, the word others use for them and the word they use for themselves, and examines what the right to call oneself differently consists of and where it meets other people's speech. It draws on the Analects and the Discourses of Epictetus, the renamings in Genesis and the story of Naomi in the Book of Ruth, Romeo and Juliet and Plato's Cratylus, the Tao Te Ching and the Zhuangzi, Sura 49 of the Qur'an, and on one experiment on forms of reference, a corpus study of expressions for people with various health conditions, surveys on marital surname change and an opinion piece on name changes in publication records. The studies read did not measure what a change of name does for the person; the practical steps are the authors' working criteria.
Questions explored
What is a self-name, and what does the right to call oneself differently consist of?
The article separates three words that usually merge: the name a person was given, the word others use for them, and the word they use for themselves. Changing one's own word about oneself is in one's power; making others use the new word is not, because other people's speech, habits and records do not belong to us. In our reading, the right to change has two parts: freedom in the first case and a justified claim in the second — to ask, to explain, to insist, while counting on a response. This is the authors' distinction and reading, not a research finding; the open studies read for the article did not measure what a name change does for the person.
Why, according to the article, does a name bind?
The article reads the Analects (XIII.3) and the Discourses of Epictetus (II.10) as texts in which a name is not a label but a promise. Asked by Tsze-lu what he would do first if entrusted with the government, Confucius answers that it is necessary to rectify names: if names are not correct, language does not accord with the truth of things, and affairs cannot succeed. Epictetus derives a person's duties from their names — human being, citizen, son, brother. In our reading, to name oneself is to make a promise, and to change one's name is in some way to revise that promise. Confucius speaks of government and the general order of words, Epictetus of a person's conduct in their roles; neither speaks of changing a personal name.
Why do the renamings of Abraham and Jacob in Genesis matter for the article?
In Genesis a new name is given at a turning point: to Abraham together with the promise of making him a father of many nations (Genesis 17:5), to Jacob after the night of wrestling, with an explanation that points to what has happened (Genesis 32:28). Yet the new name does not displace the old one at once: in the very next chapter the narrator again calls him Jacob (Genesis 33:1), and in 35:10 God pronounces the renaming once more. In our reading, even a name given by the highest authority does not enter speech instantly, so renaming is a process in which both the one who names and those who repeat the name take part. In Genesis, renaming is a religious act within a narrative of covenant and blessing, not a model of personal choice; it does not follow that every new name carries a promise or a blessing.
What does the story of Naomi, who asked to be called Mara, say about self-naming?
Having lost her husband and two sons in the land of Moab and returned to Bethlehem, Naomi says: “Call me not Naomi” (Ruth 1:20), and asks to be called Mara instead; a footnote in the Russian Synodal translation glosses Naomi as “pleasant” and Mara as “bitter”. Yet in the very next verse the narrator reports that Naomi returned (1:22) and goes on calling her by her former name, and at the end of the book the neighbour women also speak of Naomi (4:17). How to understand this, the text does not say: Mara may have named a state of grief rather than the whole woman, or the story may reflect the speech of those around her. In both readings a self-name is a request addressed to others, who have their own reasons to hold on to the former word. The right to call oneself otherwise does not guarantee being called so.
Doesn't the argument that a name is only a convention undo all this?
This is the strongest objection: in Shakespeare Juliet voices it — Romeo would keep everything that makes him dear without that title — and in Plato's Cratylus Hermogenes, who cannot convince himself that names have any correctness other than convention and agreement. The article grants it one point: the word does not change the thing, and there is no ground to expect that a new name will, by itself, change a person. But, in our reading, Hermogenes' own example — people often change the names of their slaves — shows the reverse side of convention: an agreement about names presupposes that someone is entitled to name another, so the question of the right to name oneself turns into the question of who takes part in the agreement. Hermogenes' position is that of an interlocutor whom Socrates then examines, and it must not be attributed to Plato.
What do the Daoist texts add to the question of a name?
In our reading, the Tao Te Ching and the Zhuangzi raise a different objection: not “a name means nothing” but “a name is less than what it names”. The first chapter of the Tao Te Ching says that the name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name; the hermit Hsü Yu, refusing the throne, calls reputation but the shadow of reality. From this the article draws both a limit and a release: by this logic no word will at last express who I really am, but one can change one's name without demanding of it what no name gives. The article does not merge this Daoist distrust of the name and Confucius' concern for correct names into one teaching. Laozi's line is about the Tao, not about human names, the words on reputation are a hermit's speech within a parable, and applying them to a person's name is our analogy.
How does the Qur'an treat nicknames?
In Sura 49, among instructions to believers about life in the community, there is a direct prohibition: “Neither defame one another, nor call one another by nicknames” (Sura 49, verse 11, tr. J. M. Rodwell). In this norm, naming another person is not a neutral act: a nickname can be an injury, and members of the community answer for the words they use for one another. This is a religious norm for the community of believers, not an experimental basis, and a similarity of its motif with the study of forms of reference does not mean a shared teaching.
Does the form of reference (person-first or identity-first) change attitudes towards people?
In one preregistered online experiment with UK residents (Schumann and Zohny, PLOS ONE, 2025), participants rated a group named in identity-first or in person-first form. For people who have committed a violent crime, the person-first form reduced negative stereotypes and negative affect and increased willingness for contact; the authors describe these effects as small to moderate. For people with a physical disability, the same form did not change the negative ratings but slightly reduced positive stereotypes and somewhat increased dehumanization. In this experiment the form of a word changed how third parties rated the named group — but not always in the expected direction, and not equally for the two groups. These are third-party ratings, for only two groups and in a UK sample that was highly educated on average; how members of these groups respond to such forms the study does not show.
How has the use of identity-first and person-first forms changed over time?
Kang, Baes, Wu and Haslam (PLOS Mental Health, 2026) traced simple forms for 15 conditions, 11 of which concern mental health and development, in Google Books for 1980–2019 and in the NOW news corpus for 2010–2025. In books the share of the identity-first form fell markedly: for plural expressions from about 0.62 in 1980 to 0.32 in 2019, for singular ones from 0.81 to about 0.51; towards the end of the period the decline slowed, in the news there was no longer an overall trend, and the conditions diverged. In our reading, in choosing what to call oneself, a person partly joins one side of a current debate, and these data do not provide a universally “correct” form. The data describe how expressions were used in books and news, not the preferences of people with these conditions, and cover only simple forms in English; linking these movements with advocacy and guidelines is the authors' interpretation, made after the fact for the differences between conditions.
Where does self-naming meet law and records?
An example of law is the married surname: as a 2021 study describes it, under Article 187 of the Turkish Civil Code of 1926 a married woman must adopt her husband's surname, and since 1997 she may keep her own surname before her husband's. In three cross-sectional surveys — 118 women in Turkey who identify as feminists, 131 female students at a university in Ankara and 140 at a US university — Maria Chayinska and colleagues (Frontiers in Psychology, 2021) found that hostile sexism was associated with greater support for a woman changing her surname on marriage. An example of the record is the opinion piece by Gaskins and McClain (PLOS Biology, 2021): as they describe it, someone who changed their name after publishing chooses among three equally unacceptable paths, and the authors propose “invisible” name changes through a single ORCID-based mechanism. The surveys are cross-sectional and do not show causality, the samples are small convenience samples, the results are culturally specific, and what was measured was support for a practice, not anyone's own choice of name or its consequences; the piece by Gaskins and McClain is the authors' argument without data of their own, not a finding.
What does a change of name do for the person?
The open studies read for the article do not answer this main personal question: the experiment by Schumann and Zohny measured third-party ratings, the corpus study by Kang and colleagues frequencies of expressions, the surveys by Chayinska and colleagues support for the practice of changing surnames, and the piece by Gaskins and McClain states the authors' position without data of their own; none asked people who had changed their names how their well-being, relationships or sense of self had changed. The word does not change the thing, so there is no ground to expect a new name to change one's life by itself. The authors' argument is more modest: a new name can change how a person is addressed only if others accept it. The article claims neither that a new name improves well-being nor that it worsens it: such a conclusion would require other studies, and its basis contains none.
What does the article suggest in practice?
Six working criteria of the authors, drawn from the argument of the article: distinguish what is changing — a name, a surname, a nickname, a word of role or belonging; connect the new word with your story, at least for yourself, to tell a lasting decision from a word that names an acute state; say plainly what to call you and allow time, distinguishing a slip of habit, disrespect and a refusal to recognise; for documents and records, learn the procedure in advance, since laws on surnames differ from country to country; when naming others, ask what they call themselves; do not expect from a name what no name gives. These steps have not been tested in research; this is not a method and not a guarantee of results.
When is it worth turning to a specialist about a question of name?
If the question of a name is bound up with severe distress, harassment, a threat to safety or a protracted conflict with people close to you, the article says it is worth turning to a psychologist or a doctor, and for documents to a lawyer. If thoughts of harming yourself appear, seek help at once; in immediate danger, contact the emergency services of your country. This is the authors' general caveat, not clinical guidance; the article names no specific help services.
Key distinctions
The article separates three words that usually merge: the name a person was given, the word others use for them, and the word they use for themselves. Changing one's own word about oneself is in one's power; making others use the new word is not, because other people's speech, habits and records do not belong to us. In our reading, the right to change has two parts: freedom in the first case and a justified claim in the second — to ask, to explain, to insist, while counting on a response. This is the authors' distinction and reading, not a research finding; the open studies read for the article did not measure what a name change does for the person.
Having lost her husband and two sons in the land of Moab and returned to Bethlehem, Naomi says: “Call me not Naomi” (Ruth 1:20), and asks to be called Mara instead; a footnote in the Russian Synodal translation glosses Naomi as “pleasant” and Mara as “bitter”. Yet in the very next verse the narrator reports that Naomi returned (1:22) and goes on calling her by her former name, and at the end of the book the neighbour women also speak of Naomi (4:17). How to understand this, the text does not say: Mara may have named a state of grief rather than the whole woman, or the story may reflect the speech of those around her. In both readings a self-name is a request addressed to others, who have their own reasons to hold on to the former word. The right to call oneself otherwise does not guarantee being called so.
In one preregistered online experiment with UK residents (Schumann and Zohny, PLOS ONE, 2025), participants rated a group named in identity-first or in person-first form. For people who have committed a violent crime, the person-first form reduced negative stereotypes and negative affect and increased willingness for contact; the authors describe these effects as small to moderate. For people with a physical disability, the same form did not change the negative ratings but slightly reduced positive stereotypes and somewhat increased dehumanization. In this experiment the form of a word changed how third parties rated the named group — but not always in the expected direction, and not equally for the two groups. These are third-party ratings, for only two groups and in a UK sample that was highly educated on average; how members of these groups respond to such forms the study does not show.
Kang, Baes, Wu and Haslam (PLOS Mental Health, 2026) traced simple forms for 15 conditions, 11 of which concern mental health and development, in Google Books for 1980–2019 and in the NOW news corpus for 2010–2025. In books the share of the identity-first form fell markedly: for plural expressions from about 0.62 in 1980 to 0.32 in 2019, for singular ones from 0.81 to about 0.51; towards the end of the period the decline slowed, in the news there was no longer an overall trend, and the conditions diverged. In our reading, in choosing what to call oneself, a person partly joins one side of a current debate, and these data do not provide a universally “correct” form. The data describe how expressions were used in books and news, not the preferences of people with these conditions, and cover only simple forms in English; linking these movements with advocacy and guidelines is the authors' interpretation, made after the fact for the differences between conditions.
The open studies read for the article do not answer this main personal question: the experiment by Schumann and Zohny measured third-party ratings, the corpus study by Kang and colleagues frequencies of expressions, the surveys by Chayinska and colleagues support for the practice of changing surnames, and the piece by Gaskins and McClain states the authors' position without data of their own; none asked people who had changed their names how their well-being, relationships or sense of self had changed. The word does not change the thing, so there is no ground to expect a new name to change one's life by itself. The authors' argument is more modest: a new name can change how a person is addressed only if others accept it. The article claims neither that a new name improves well-being nor that it worsens it: such a conclusion would require other studies, and its basis contains none.
Six working criteria of the authors, drawn from the argument of the article: distinguish what is changing — a name, a surname, a nickname, a word of role or belonging; connect the new word with your story, at least for yourself, to tell a lasting decision from a word that names an acute state; say plainly what to call you and allow time, distinguishing a slip of habit, disrespect and a refusal to recognise; for documents and records, learn the procedure in advance, since laws on surnames differ from country to country; when naming others, ask what they call themselves; do not expect from a name what no name gives. These steps have not been tested in research; this is not a method and not a guarantee of results.
If the question of a name is bound up with severe distress, harassment, a threat to safety or a protracted conflict with people close to you, the article says it is worth turning to a psychologist or a doctor, and for documents to a lawyer. If thoughts of harming yourself appear, seek help at once; in immediate danger, contact the emergency services of your country. This is the authors' general caveat, not clinical guidance; the article names no specific help services.
Limits of interpretation
- Source references cover only the passages named (for example Analects XIII.3, Discourses II.10, Genesis 17, 32, 33, 35, Ruth 1 and 4, Romeo and Juliet II.2, Cratylus 384c–d, Tao Te Ching ch. 1, Zhuangzi ch. I, Sura 49); reading of whole works is not claimed.
- Biblical quotations in the EN version follow the King James Version; other quotations follow the English editions listed; the Stephanus numbers of the Cratylus follow the usual reference (the copy has none); the verses of Sura 49 follow the usual numbering, while Rodwell's edition orders the suras differently.
- Research: one preregistered online experiment (United Kingdom, third-party ratings, two groups), a corpus study (books and news, simple English forms only), three cross-sectional surveys (Turkey and the United States, no causality shown); associations are not presented as causes.
- The piece by Gaskins and McClain is an opinion piece without data of its own; its proposals are the authors' argument, not a finding.
- None of the studies read measured what a change of name does for the person (well-being, relationships, sense of self); the article makes no claims about this.
- The hypothetical example at the start and the practical steps are the authors' own; the steps have not been tested in research and are neither a method nor a guarantee of results.
- Religious and philosophical statements are attributed to their own texts; applying them to personal self-naming is the authors' reading and analogy; a similarity of motifs does not mean a shared teaching or a historical link between the traditions.
- The material makes no diagnoses and does not replace help from a psychologist, a doctor or a lawyer; specific help services are not named.
- Publication, library delivery and indexing were not performed in this task.
Sources
- The Chinese Classics, vol. 1: Confucian Analects — Confucius (records of his disciples)
Read: the paragraphs around the excerpts (I-01-N01-E01): Analects, Book XIII, ch. III, 2 (Legge). The work was not read in full.
- The King James Version of the Bible / The Bible, Russian Synodal translation — The Bible
Read: the paragraphs around the excerpts (I-01-N01-E02, I-01-N01-E03, I-01-N01-E04, I-01-N01-E05, I-01-N01-E06, I-01-N01-E07, I-01-N01-E08, I-01-N01-E09): Genesis 17:5 (KJV); Genesis 17:5 (Russian Synodal translation); Genesis 32:28 (KJV); Genesis 32:28 (Russian Synodal translation); Ruth 1:20 (KJV); Ruth 1:21 (KJV); Ruth 1:20 (Russian Synodal translation; beginning of the speech, up to the footnote mark); Ruth 1:21 (Russian Synodal translation). The work was not read in full.
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare — William Shakespeare
Read: the paragraphs around the excerpts (I-01-N01-E10): Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II (Juliet). The work was not read in full.
- The Tao Teh King, or the Tao and its Characteristics — Laozi
Read: the paragraphs around the excerpts (I-01-N01-E11): Tao Teh King, ch. 1, 1 (Legge). The work was not read in full.
- Cratylus — Plato
Read: the paragraphs around the excerpts (I-01-N01-E12): Cratylus 384d (Jowett; speech of Hermogenes; the copy has no Stephanus numbers). The work was not read in full.
- A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion — Epictetus
Read: the paragraphs around the excerpts (I-01-N01-E13): Discourses II.10 «How we may discover the duties of life from names» (Long; selection, PG #10661). The work was not read in full.
- The Koran (Al-Qur'an) — The Qur'an
Read: the paragraphs around the excerpts (I-01-N01-E14): Sura 49 «The Apartments», v. 11 in the usual numbering (Rodwell; the edition orders the suras differently). The work was not read in full.
- Chuang Tzŭ: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer — Zhuangzi
Read: the paragraphs around the excerpts (I-01-N01-E15): Chuang Tzŭ, ch. I (Giles 1889; speech of Hsü Yu). The work was not read in full.
- Does attitude importance moderate the effects of person-first language? A registered report — Sandy Schumann, Hazem Zohny
Full text in the saved copy: METHODS — Method: Design; Data collection procedure; Sample; Variables (lines 44–68); RESULTS — Results: randomization … confirmatory and exploratory analyses (Tables 6–8) (lines 69–159); DISCUSSION — Discussion, paras 1–9 (lines 160–169); LIMITATIONS — Discussion: Limitations (lines 170–174); DISCUSSION — Conclusion (lines 175–178). The abstract was not used for claims; excerpts are in READINGS/results/results_I-01-N01-S10.txt
- Who you are or what you have: Historical trends in identity-first and person-first language in books and news media — Jiyoon Kang, Naomi Baes, Amy Wu, Nick Haslam
Full text in the saved copy: METHODS — Method: Text corpora; Materials and measures; Statistical analysis (lines 40–72); RESULTS — Results: Long-run (1980–2019), Short-run (2010–2025), Combined trends (lines 73–136); DISCUSSION — Discussion, paras 1–7 (lines 137–144); LIMITATIONS — Discussion, limitations paragraph (lines 145–145); DISCUSSION — Conclusion (lines 146–147). The abstract was not used for claims; excerpts are in READINGS/results/results_I-01-N01-S11.txt
- Obstacles to Birth Surname Retention Upon Marriage: How Do Hostile Sexism and System Justification Predict Support for Marital Surname Change Among Women? — Maria Chayinska, Özden Melis Uluğ, Nevin Solak, Betül Kanık, Burcu Çuvaş
Full text in the saved copy: METHODS — Study 1: context, Participants and Procedure, Measures (lines 45–61); RESULTS — Study 1: Results and Discussion (lines 62–76); METHODS — Study 2: Method (lines 77–83); RESULTS — Study 2: Results and Discussion (lines 84–98); METHODS — Study 3: Method, Sample Comparisons (lines 99–115); RESULTS — Study 3: Results and Discussion (lines 116–130); DISCUSSION — General Discussion, paras 1–8 (lines 131–139); LIMITATIONS — General Discussion, limitations paragraph (lines 140–140). The abstract was not used for claims; excerpts are in READINGS/results/results_I-01-N01-S12.txt
- Visible name changes promote inequity for transgender researchers — Leo Chan Gaskins, Craig R. McClain
Full text in the saved copy: DISCUSSION — Perspective, full text (position paper, no data) (lines 19–31). The abstract was not used for claims; excerpts are in READINGS/results/results_I-01-N01-S13.txt