Introductory Note

Names are never neutral. They carry the weight of identity, the imprint of authority, and the scars of history. In scripture, to be called is to be claimed—sometimes by covenant, sometimes by empire. In the African diaspora, names were stripped, replaced, and resisted, becoming both a site of oppression and a spark of liberation. 

This reflection explores the power of naming—from Nazareth to Babylon, from the Middle Passage to modern reclamation—and the promise of the secret name God gives to every believer. It is a meditation on how names shape destiny, how reclaiming them restores dignity, and how the divine call seals us with intimacy that no empire can erase. 

Called by a Name

He came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth. 
Prophecy whispered: He shall be called a Nazarene. 
Not just geography, but destiny. 
Not just a label, but a claim. 

I. The Weight of Names

In Hebrew memory, names are more than syllables. 
They are covenant, breath, and burden. 
Abram stretched into Abraham, 
Jacob wrestled into Israel. 
To be called is to be claimed, 
to be summoned into story. 

But empire renames. 
Daniel becomes Belteshazzar, 
identity bent beneath Babylon’s tongue. 
To rename is to rule. 
To resist renaming is to remember. 

II. The Diaspora’s Cry

Across the Atlantic, chains carried not only bodies but names. 
Kwame became William, 
Amina became Ann. 
The erasure was deliberate, 
a stripping of lineage, 
a silencing of ancestral drums. 

Yet in hush harbors, in coded songs, 
the old names hummed beneath the new. 
Memory survived in fragments, 
waiting for reclamation. 

III. Reclaiming the Call

Today, when sons and daughters of the diaspora 
adopt African names, 
it is not nostalgia. 
It is not rhetoric. 
It is resurrection. 

It is saying: 
We are not what empire called us. 
We are not the names of plantation ledgers. 
We are the names of rivers, of ancestors, of freedom. 
To be called again is to be restored. 

IV. The Nazarene Parallel@

Jesus was called a Nazarene, 
a title of scorn, 
a mark of obscurity. 
Yet prophecy turned insult into identity, 
mockery into fulfillment. 

So too the diaspora: 
names once erased, 
now reclaimed, 
become prophecy fulfilled. 
The act of naming is not nostalgia— 
it is resistance, 
it is covenant, 
it is liberation. 

V. The Secret Name

And yet beyond all human naming, 
there is a name that empire cannot touch. 
A name no overseer can erase, 
no ledger can record, 
no whip can silence. 

“To the one who overcomes,” Revelation declares, 
“I will give a white stone, 
and on the stone a new name written, 
which no one knows except the one who receives it.” 

This is intimacy beyond oppression. 
This is uniqueness beyond renaming. 
This is God whispering identity 
that only you and He can share. 

VI. The Forehead Seal

“They shall see His face, 
and His name shall be in their foreheads.” 

Not the brand of empire, 
not the scar of slavery, 
but the seal of belonging. 
The forehead becomes a canvas of covenant, 
the body itself a testimony: 
I am called, 
I am claimed, 
I am His. 

VII. The Ultimate Liberation

So what’s my name?

So the believer bears two names: 
the one shouted by empire, 
and the one whispered by God. 
The first seeks to erase, 
the second restores. 

The first is public, imposed, 
the second is secret, intimate, eternal. 
And in the end, 
the secret name triumphs. 
The forehead shines, 
the stone glimmers, 
and the believer stands 
with a name that cannot be taken away. 

What people call one another are usually chips we seldom cash in.