Adult Naming and Rite of Passage Ceremonies
Marking the moment a name, or a life, changes.
We are good at marking births, marriages and deaths in this country, and hopeless at everything in between. People change their names, come of age, finish treatment, retire, leave a marriage or arrive in a new country, and the moment passes with a card and a round of drinks.
A ceremony gives it weight. It puts the people who matter in one room, says out loud what has actually happened, and gives everyone a way to respond to it.
Fig. 06 Adult Naming & Rite of Passage
Changing a name
A name change ceremony is the one I am asked for most often. People come to it for very different reasons.
- Gender transition, where the new name is introduced properly and used by everyone present
- Leaving behind a name attached to an abusive family or an abusive marriage
- Taking back a family name, a birth name or a name from a language that got flattened somewhere along the way
- A new name after citizenship, adoption or a long awaited arrival somewhere safe
- A name chosen simply because the old one never fitted
How a name change ceremony tends to run
There is usually a moment where the old name is acknowledged rather than pretended away, because it was carried for a long time and often through some difficult years. What that acknowledgement looks like is entirely up to you, and for some people it is a sentence and for others it is nothing at all.
Then the new name is spoken, by you and then by everybody in the room, which is a stranger and more moving thing than it sounds on paper. People often want the deed poll signed as part of the ceremony, with two friends witnessing it there and then.
Some ask friends and family to make a promise in return. To use the name without stumbling, to correct other people, to keep no old photographs on display without asking first.
Rites of passage
Anything that deserves marking properly can be marked properly. These are the ones I am asked for.
- Coming of age at sixteen, eighteen or twenty one, with something more substantial than a party
- Graduation, qualification or the end of a long piece of training
- Retirement, especially after decades in one trade
- The end of treatment, or a recovery milestone worth saying out loud
- Divorce and the start of a household of one, which more people mark than you would think
- A significant birthday where the person would rather be spoken about honestly than surprised
- Moving into a first home of your own, or blessing a house after a hard year in it
Symbolic moments that suit these
- Burning or burying something that belonged to the old chapter
- A candle passed around every person present and lit from one flame
- Planting a tree, or something that has to be looked after for years
- A letter written to yourself, sealed and opened on a set date
- A gift from each person present, chosen for the person you are now
“Hearing forty people say my name at once, correctly, on purpose, is not something I will ever forget. My mum practised for a fortnight.”
AlexName change ceremony, Bath
- A planning meeting to work out what the moment actually is
- A ceremony written from scratch around your story
- Guidance for family and friends on their part in it, before the day
- Coordination of any deed poll signing and witnessing during the ceremony
- A symbolic element if you want one, sourced and set up by me
- A PA system where the space needs it
- A bound copy of the words afterwards