What’s In A Name?

I know many of my neighbours by name. Having lived in the same house for over thirty years, I’ve walked these streets for countless hours; sometimes pushing strollers, sometimes walking a succession of dogs, sometimes both at once. Over those years, I’ve come to know many of my human neighbours. Many of us have raised children, tended gardens and begun to grow old in tandem. The name of each person is like a basket — a small yet miraculously capacious receptacle holding a vast treasure of shared history and stories. For the past fifteen years, I’ve expanded my “getting to know the neighbours” concept to the local crows, giving many of them their own names too. I’m sure they don’t particularly value their names. Still, crow nomenclature has lots of advantages for me: it helps me keep their stories straight in my mind, and it seems only polite to acknowledge the fact that I know them, just as they know me. When I say “good morning, Marvin,” the name-basket contains so much. Things like…