What is in a name change?

What is in a name change?  It seems like people all over the world such as artist, musicians, authors, and actresses/actors change there names these days.  For example, Billy Idols real name is William Michael Albert Broad. To me, it appears that people change there names to become someone else, it almost as if, they have taken on a pseudonym. Actors, singers and rappers often take a pseudonym to create a persona different than their legal names would evoke Is it that they are running away from the person they used to be or are they just running towards a new one? 

Throughout, Bharati Mukherjee novel Jasmine, the main character Jyoti Vinh is a young, Indian girl who is suddenly widowed at age seventeen and fated to live in the village of Punjab, India for the rest of life, when she forces through the regular norm and enters a new world. Jyoti Vinh demonstrates someone who has either ran away for the person she used to be or has ran towards the person she wanted to become.  When Jyoti leaves Punjab, she originates in a place called Baden, Elsa County, Iowa where she meets a man named Bud Ripplemeyer. She ends up pregnant, and engaged to Bud.  Jyoti Vinh changes her name to Jane Ripplemeyer, when she relocates to Iowa.  Bud (her Finance’) changes her name, giving her the name Jane to fit in the country more. Jane changes her name one last time throughout the novel, but that not until she and Bud move to New York. 

Jane’s name changes throughout the novel can either be explained as free will or destiny.  Was she trying to run away from something or was she trying to become something? Her name changes can be defined as free will, but I would have to object to that view, because Jane passively accepts the name that Bud has given her, with no questioning. It is almost as if, she does what she is told.  It might be that she is actively accepting this change, because it how she was raised, men were the dominant figures, and the women did as they were told.  The woman in India, were told to marry, have children, and help farm. Her future is almost bound to be foretold in the dominate hands of a male.  

Jane says, “I know what I don’t want to become”(5). So, to an extent, Jane’s decisions have been free will, except for the fact that her name has been changed passively. Jane relocates in a place where she can still remain a farmer and still hold on some part of her Indian culture.  Iowa was a place of farming, where she could reconnect with her past, while still creating a new life.  Jane states, “Taylor didn’t want me to run away to Iowa.  How can anyone leave New York, he said, how can you leave New York, you belong here” (6).  She needs to go to a place where she could run away to become someone else, but still hold on to the Jyoti.

Some people may change there names, because it is something that they need to do, but most do it because, they are trying to portray someone they are not.  Jane has changed her name, because it what Bud wanted her to do, but yet she remains in charge of her own destiny of where that name may take her.  To Jane, a name is nothing more but a name that allows her to from her new identity.