LGBT Senior Featured Essay: A Rose By Any Other Name, by Rick Rose
By Rick Rose
Shakespeare knew something about names. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet argues that a name is just a label — that the thing itself is what matters.
Names matter enormously. They stick. They follow you into every room, every relationship, every first impression for the rest of your life. And the decision to give someone a name — that tiny human with no say in the matter — is one of the most consequential decisions a parent will ever make.
No pressure.
Certainly, popular names have their appeal and are easy. The Jennifers. The Michaels. The Emmas and the Liams. Share the name with me, and I will often know your age.  These are safely field-tested, tried and true so much that they recycle and resurface every few generations. But there’s another school of thought — that a name should feel like your name. Something that landed in your gut and felt true.
Often, the work begins long before the baby does. Lists are made, family members are consulted, syllables are tested against the last name to make sure nothing unfortunate rhymes with anything. Some parents arrive at the hospital with the name locked in. Others hold it loosely. And then there are the ones I’ve always admired most: the parents who wait. Who look at that brand new face and say, let me see who you are first. The instinct — to feel the baby before naming it — strikes me as deeply human and quietly wise.
I have long respected the African American tradition of naming. It is an act of authorship. Parents don’t just choose a name; they craft one. They combine sounds, invent spellings, build something entirely new. A name like Lakeisha or Deshawn isn’t pulling from a baby book — it’s pulling from imagination, from family, from a desire to give a child something that belongs to them alone.
Every life is singular. A child deserves to arrive in the world as the only one.
My mother didn’t agonize over my name. I was going to be Richard — the second in the line, as it was my father’s name. That was simply the way it was going to be. But when I arrived, someone said it: that’s Ricky Rose on the drums. And just like that, it stuck. Not because of a spreadsheet or a baby name book. Because I looked like a Ricky Rose. Because some names just announce themselves. The tradition carried forward — there is now a third and a fourth: Dylan Richard and Richie Wade. The thread holds, but the name evolves.
I’ve been lucky. Rick Rose works. People accept it.
A good name is a gift. It’s on your diploma, election ballots, your byline, your headstone. You carry it through every version of yourself.
A good name stays, even when you change.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​