“What’s In a Name?” Naming and Knowing in Lady Bird (2017)

Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird (2017) perfectly encapsulates the classic teenage experience of wanting to know everything and yet be known by nothing. Desperate to escape from her Catholic high school and claustrophobic hometown of Sacramento to “somewhere where there’s culture,” the film’s protagonist, Ladybird, struggles against her self-proclaimed banal life. Born Christine, she refuses the name her parents gave her, opting for Ladybird and insisting that others refer to her as such. Oftentimes, and possibly to Ladybird’s dismay, others abide by this request without protest or curiosity. By changing her name, Ladybird wishes to make a statement, and to set herself apart from - well, herself. Throughout the film, Gerwig comments on naming and its relation to identity and autonomy.

Initially, Ladybird believes that naming something necessarily entails extensive knowledge of that thing, to such an extent as to constitute ownership and control. Ladybird and her mother are almost constantly at odds throughout the film, and her mother often intentionally weaponises Ladybird’s name. In their more amicable interactions, Ladybird’s mother refers to her as “Ladybird,” however, when their conversations turn hostile, her mother calls Ladybird “Christine.” This reinforces Ladybird’s feeling that her self-given name distances her from her mother, which protects her from her mother’s disapproval and allows her to evade her mother’s control.

Despite her distaste for being controlled, Ladybird herself seems interested in controlling the identities of other,, as she views them all as existing only in relation to herself. After becoming romantically involved with one of her school play cast mates, Danny, Ladybird writes his name on her pink bedroom wall in thick black marker pen. She does the same thing later in the film, once she and Kyle become close. In this, there is a sense of secret knowledge of these people, as though writing their names on her wall identifies them as part of her private space. Through this act, these people are constrained by Ladybird’s way of knowing them, as the permanence of this gesture confines them to Ladybird’s constrained perception indefinitely. After these relationships dissolve, Ladybird, done knowing them in this way, crosses out their names, relinquishing her ownership of these selective identities that she had once perceived to be comprehensive.

When Ladybird and Danny name a star “Bruce,” they are creating this same sense of exclusive knowledge. As evidenced by “Bruce,” Ladybird feels that to name something is to know it in a way which the named person cannot control. Ladybird feels that the origin of her name compromises her autonomy, as her name associates her with her family, whom she is consistently ashamed of. She tells Danny she’s “from the wrong side of the tracks,” lies to Jenna about where she lives, and strikes her birth and family names from the published casting sheet for the school play. Ladybird believes that her name will limit her, as it causes people to think that they know her in the same way they know her parents.

However, despite not being controlled by those who are named, this naming and knowing can deem one’s identity of value and importance. Ladybird’s best friend Julie is nicknamed “Jules” by their teacher Mr. Bruno. No one else calls Julie by this name, and Julie feels that this creates an intimacy between them as it suggests that Mr Bruno knows her in a different way compared to everyone else. Julie is flattered by this special nickname, viewing it as her teacher considering her to be a special person. Both Ladybird and Julie seem to subscribe to the idea that names are identities in and of themselves. This is evidenced in their referring to socially important people by their full names, such as the popular girl “Jenna Walton” and Kyle’s band mate “Jonah Ruiz”. To Ladybird and Julie, these people are of value, and are worth knowing. In the context of how ashamed Ladybird is of her family and her eagerness to distance herself from her family name, referring to these people by their full names suggests that Ladybird views their identities as proudly apparent.

However, as the film reaches its turning point, we see Ladybird learn that identity and name are separable phenomena. Danny visits Ladybird at work in the cafe and breaks down as he admits that he is gay. For the first time in the film, Ladybird sees someone as existing very separately from her. She realises that her assumed comprehensive knowledge of Danny was in fact very limited. Her narcissistic glass cracks a little as she confronts the fact that other people are as complex as she is, and that knowing a name is not synonymous with knowing a person.

This glass is then shattered as Ladybird realises how hollow a name is without an identity to fill it. Whilst befriending a nonchalant Jenna and dating an even more nonchalant Kyle, Ladybird neglects her best friend Julie, whom she further alienates in a misguided attempt to rekindle their friendship. Ladybird’s mother asks, “who’s Jenna?” when Ladybird tells her that they are all going to prom together. Jenna similarly asks, “who’s Julie?” when Ladybird mentions her on their way to prom. Ladybird realises that she has split herself across two disconnected lives. The once protective fallacy of the nickname is now a trap, and Ladybird realises that she has created a person that she herself does not know. Even the film’s title is a separated “Lady Bird” as opposed to Ladybird’s own spelling of it throughout the film. This feels as though even the nickname Ladybird is besmirched. This nickname trap carries with it an unattainable and unsustainable weight of being two people at once, which ultimately culminates in the unfulfilling and insubstantial feeling of being no one at all.

Finally, as she fulfils her dream of moving to New York for college, Ladybird realises that naming does not establish authoritative knowledge so much as it creates a connection. At a party of strangers, Ladybird strikes up a conversation with a boy called David, introducing herself as Christine and shaking his hand. He remarks with surprise that she shakes hands, and she replies, “I shake,” confirming to herself that this is something that she will do whilst in the shoes of her fresh identity as Christine. When David asks her where she is from, Christine offers San Francisco because he has not heard of Sacramento. As she quickly runs out of things to say about San Francisco, Ladybird/Christine realises that she is completely disconnected from Sacramento for the first time. Even though she had wished to escape Sacramento, when confronted so blatantly with the reality of losing it, she strives to re-connect herself with it. Mid-conversation with David, Ladybird/Christine leans out of the window and shouts to Bruce the star in an attempt to connect to something that she feels she understands. Inside the party, David corrects her, thinking that she had forgotten his name. It becomes clear that life is moving on, and that the connections Ladybird/Christine had made in Sacramento are important to her. When she wakes up in the hospital after getting very drunk, Ladybird/Christine looks at her hospital tag, which says “Christine” on it. Looking at an injured boy with his mother sitting by him, Ladybird/Christine realises that no one is going to pick her up from the hospital, and that she has to own herself and own “Christine”. She finally learns that just because she is now going by Christine does not mean that her parents own her.

Earlier in the film, Ladybird/Christine remarks how absurd it is that we’re all called by names that our parents “made up,” the phrasing of which suggests something hasty and thoughtless. However, as she calls home and draws the film to a close, she tells her parents that they “gave” her her name, as though it were a gift and more of a loving gesture to be known and connected to them. Calling home, she says: “It’s me, Christine. It’s the name you gave me. It’s a good one.” This simple line conveys so much about Ladybird/Christine’s wish to be connected to her family, to her home, and to herself. She learns that through her name Christine, she can be connected to it all. Her parents “gave” her her name, but she lived in it for a little while and decided it was “a good one”. Here, Christine strikes the balance between appreciating her parents, and living independently. Apart from a shared understanding of a place or people, she realises that naming doesn’t have to mean comprehensive knowledge, but it does mean connection. This notion also spread off camera, as Gerwig encouraged members of the cast and crew to wear name tags whilst filming to create a sense of connection on set.

Names are a shell to be filled. You don’t forge an identity, you find one. Christine learns that, although connected to what she loves, her name does not come pre-packaged and full. She can make it into whatever she wants, and it is nothing at all if she doesn’t define it.