When a given name is added to a family name the tone and rhythm change. A name will be sounded, and therefore used for calling out a reality that will have associations with other meaningful sounds. Secondly, a name is a sign which distinguishes a reality or a person from other realities or persons from all others in a family or perhaps in the world. A name in this sense is referential as a person or thing takes on a character through association with the person or thing named. Third, a name is a symbol.
Symbols are more than signs in that they participate in the reality to which they point or refer.
A name does more than designate a person or thing to distinguish them from others. It also links a person or thing with culture, a tradition, a family heritage or a community of some sort. Therefore, each person is assigned a given name to distinguish that person from other in the family and a family name to connect him or her to community. Our very nature as human beings who must stand out from the group in order to have separate identity and, at the same time, blend in with the group in order to find meaning in belonging is tied to the process of naming. The very fact that we are addressed and have to respond by name constitutes our relational nature as choicemakers in a context of communal ties among all living things.