What's in a Name?

I remember the moment when I found it in my grandmother's Field Guide to Western Birds. We had driven from Los Angeles, California to Salem, Oregon for a visit. I don't remember if we slept in the van at rest stops, or if we could afford to stop in Travelodges that trip. I was 9.

The book had the exact picture of a bold blue bird I recognized, with its brown cape, white necklace and eyebrows, the bird that would flick its tail and make a loud, harsh "Krrreck!" call: California Jay, the caption read. I can't explain what knowing that name meant to me (but I'll try)--to know that somebody else besides this lonely kid had noticed a bird like that, had cared. Suddenly I didn't feel so lonely. I was part of a larger world, one that included animals and people who cared about animals. Knowing its name made my relationship with the bird real somehow.

It began a lifelong interest in birdwatching and the natural world. I call myself a naturalist, but I never became a biologist--I don't like dissecting creatures, don't even want to band birds or remove eggs. That feels too invasive. Knowing the names, on the other hand, feels respectful. I loved learning the classifications: phyla, genera, the meaning of the Latin names.

Our names for ourselves, of course, generally seem more respectful than the names outsiders give us: kanaka maoli, Hawaiians call themselves, "real people," while Europeans are haole, which may mean "no breath," perhaps because the first ones they met seemed so sickly and pale. I wonder what the jays call themselves. Nowadays we call the species formerly known as California Jay, "Scrub Jay." Their name for themselves has got to be better than that.

A woman I was talking to in a social setting said she'd seen two blue birds that morning. Quickly another woman tried to determine whether it was a Steller's Jay (with a crest) or a Scrub Jay (just normal). Why did the search for the name seem to take the magic away, in this case? Here the naming felt like appropriation, like we could name the bird and say, yes, we know all about this bird; have even dissected one. If the bird in question remains a blue bird on a fine spring day, somehow it retains its freedom, wildness, magic.

Whatever your name, you blue bird, California Jay, Scrub Jay, collection of bird-generated sounds you call yourself, you--individually and collectively--flew free before me to show me the way, and for that I thank you.