misnomers
being asked how to pronounce my name correctly, recently, made me think about how the most common way of referring to someone is also, arguably, the least accurate one. Undoubtedly, my name is among the less important signifiers of my identity - why would it matter how it’s pronounced if I had no role assigning it? The phonetics may have become familiar and evoke some kind of response after hearing it from my loved ones all these years, but it doesn't say anything significant about me.
Words should clarify not obfuscate. And among the categories of meaningless nomenclature, I think streets and metro stations named after people, are the guiltiest of all. Give a commuter some clues about where they're at. Navigation systems are designed by people for people — how hard is it to include a location signifier or directional nudge? Eponymous laws and old institutional buildings named after men, come a close second.
This is a problem of badly designed information architecture. We're a creative species, and could've thought up more useful ways to refer to the cognitive limit to the number of people that one can maintain stable social relationships with than Dunbar's Number. It's 150. Can we start calling it the 150-people-rule? or I bet the internet is full of even better ideas. Let's just stop naming things after old, white and dead men.
And with all my permission, please derive your own creative distortion of my name, it has little to do with me anyway.