“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.” Juliet, from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (Scene 2, Act 2)
During moments of journaling, there’s a sharpening effect, and the everyday becomes a bit more extraordinary.
August 4, 2025
Today, an esthetician shared with me that she was leaving the corporate salon to start her own business.
She whispered her business concept, and I promised not to share it with anyone until the grand opening.
The more she shared, the more it became clear that she put a lot of thought and effort into carving out a niche for herself.
But there was one thing she was stuck on— the name. What should she call her life’s work?
Paid $3.75 for a London Fog.
August 5, 2025
It didn’t take long for the naming dilemma to appear in my social feeds. As it often goes after any conversation these days.
First, an online friend asks writers how they come up with names for their characters.
As a writer, this feels like a question I should be able to answer. But I’m unable to at the moment. So, I keep on scrolling until I see musician sadalex contemplating a name change.
I spent hours wasting away on Instagram, LMAO through music videos, where music producer lewky_ turns online dating chats into songs.
August 6, 2025
Last week, I bought eight ounces of local honey at the farmers market for $12.00. Today, I found tiny brown ants floating in the amber liquid like a specimen jar at a natural history museum.
August 7, 2025
I’m breathing through anxiety. It flares up every time I think about sharing something with my name on it, especially online. I used to be so sure, but lately I’m not. I’d like to be more at ease with my own name.
I forgot to eat breakfast today.
August 8, 2025
While researching for my novel in progress, I came across this Joan Didion reflection written 60+ years ago. She was on an assignment for Vogue at a photographer’s studio.
“This business of the subject is tricky. Whether they are painters or photographers or composers or choreographers or for that matter writers, people whose work it is to make something out of nothing do not much like to talk about what they do or how they do it. They will talk quite freely about the technical tricks involved in what they do... but not about content.”
“The attempt to analyze one's work, which is to say to know one's subject, is seen as destructive." Didion warns the reader in the book of essays “Let Me Tell You What I Mean.”
August 9, 2025
There’s great zeal to be had when finding yourself in a book— in words that give shape to something you hadn’t yet fully realized. It’s longer lasting than a scroll stop on the news feed.
August 10, 2025
In his memoir, “Born a Crime: Stories of a South African Childhood,” Trevor Noah shares how the tradition of choosing a child’s name with a specific meaning later became a self-filling prophecy in adulthood among his family members.
Regarding his own name, Noah shares that his mother, Patricia, chose the name Trevor, because, “It was a name with no meaning whatsoever in South Africa, no precedent in my family. It's not even a Biblical name. It’s just a name,” he writes.
When you consider that Noah was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother during a time in South Africa when that was a punishable crime— the meaning behind his chosen name becomes clear.
“My mother wanted her child beholden to no fate. She wanted me to be free to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone,” Noah wrote.
Noah was born in 1984. Less than 50 years ago today.
(Side note: Born a Crime is this month’s book club pick — let me know if you want to read along and discuss.)
August 11, 2025
Elizabeth Arden, a beauty entrepreneur in the early 1900s, had a hunch that her given name, Florence Graham, lacked the appeal to build a luxury brand.
“Arden didn’t want her clients to say they got a treatment at Flo’s,” writes Stacy A. Cordery in Becoming Elizabeth Arden, a book I found while doing research for my novel in progress.
There’s much debate as to why Arden choose the name for her business venture that grew into an empire.
Some say “Elizabeth” was chosen to acknowledge a business partner and “Arden” was inspired by Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Enoch Arden.”
Others say she came up with the name to save costs on signage when a business partnership fell through.
Hello Reader features curated book lists, monthly group reads, and tips for readers who enjoy variety. For updates on my own book in progress and thoughts on life beyond the pages, take a peek at my writer’s diary.