With all due respect to Shakespeare, names are very important. Exorcisisms can’t be performed without knowing the name of a demon. When your mother uses all of your names, you know you’re in trouble. I once changed a character’s name in Ghost of a Chance and the first thing he did was punch someone in the nose.

Originally, many names reflected our jobs: Baker, Cook(e), Cooper, and Farrier. Others reflected our relationship to a clan or lineage: Pearson, Anderson, etc. And then there are the place names- where we come from. I recently found my grandfather’s baptismal certificate. My great-grandmother’s name was listed as Val of the place of her birth.

It would be cool if I could say, I decided to name my Syn-En characters after places in an homage to my great-grandmother.

But that would be lying.

The truth is far more insidious. Cyborgs are part Human and part Machine. And in their lives, the machine part mattered more than the human part. In fact, the powers that be wanted to drive that point home to justify stripping the cyborgs of any rights. They broke a link with the Syn-En by denying their claim to a human father and mother by allowing them to keep their family name. Instead, they were given names to a region not as a testament of human migration.

But like a product.

So next time you see something made in China, think of Beijing York. 

Until next time