The Doctor: What's in a Name?

[fajrdrako]

Doctor Who in some ways this season reminds me of the Guy Gavriel Kay novel Tigana.

Now, if you haven't read it, I would highly recommend it. This is a fantasy novel about a group of freedom-fighters, but even more, it's about the power of a name. It's the Rumpelstiltskin theme: the power that comes from saying a name, or taking away the power to say a name, or the power of invoking a name.

The Doctor, of course, doesn't use a name. He's just... the Doctor. As in the wonderful exchange with Rose in "The Empty Child":

Rose: What was I supposed to say, you don't have a name! Don't you ever get tired of 'Doctor'? Doctor who?
Doctor: Nine centuries in, I'm coping.

So they tease us with his name, or the absence of his name, and we get nicknames like Theta (or so I'm told) but no clues as to his original name. I was rather hoping he didn't have a real name; that Gallifreyans didn't have to have names, that they could just be The Master or The Doctor or Whatever. No, Romana wouldn't fit that pattern. Or perhaps the fun of it is that the pattern is that there is no pattern. A free for all for names.

Rose called the Doctor 'Spock' in the scene I quoted. I was disappointed, back when I was an ardent Star Trek fan, to learn that Spock had an unpronounceable last name. Why did he need a last name at all? For aliens to have the Indo-European pattern of first name and last name seems absurd to me. I don't even know why we need that pattern, but don't get me started on that....

So now it seems the Doctor has a name, and would use it in one one situation.

There's an interesting parallel here to Captain Jack Harkness, another man with no known name, using a stolen one as an accidental tribute to the man he stole it from.

So they've raised the mystery: what was Jack's name, before he was Captain Jack Harkness? Does Captain John known? Grey would know, but Grey is in a frozen coma. Toshiko asked Jack directly in "Captain Jack Harkness", and he didn't answer. What was the Doctor's name, and why is it such a secret?

Having raised the question as a tease and a mystery, will they feel compelled to answer it? Part of the game in the new series of Doctor Who was that the Doctor never said the name of Gallifrey - not until "The Runaway Bride". But that's different. We already knew the name of Gallifrey.

The bottom line: I don't want to know the name Captain Jack's parents called him by. He is Captain Jack Harkness and that's enough for me.

I don't want to know the Doctor's name. I don't ever want to know. I love the scenes in which the question is raised, but dread any hints or clues. What name could be good enough for either of them, except the names we know?

Comments

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

for a moment, when the Doctor said he would only give his name on one occasion, I thought 'he would only give it in case he married'.

It sort of refers to those societies where people have a 'true name' one reveals only to the most intimate and true friends and lovers, a name that gives power over you, a magical name.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It sort of refers to those societies where people have a 'true name' one reveals only to the most intimate and true friends and lovers, a name that gives power over you, a magical name.

So it seems. Have he had reason to believe before that the Gallifreyans do this? or it just the Doctor? (And, I would guess, the Master.) Perhaps it's the case with a certain type of Gallifreyan?

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Nope. Most Gallifreyans (watch The Deadly Assassin; it's key) have perfectly normal names. The only people we've ever seen use titles are exiles from Gallifrey. Note that Romana, who is not an exile but on temporary assignment, uses her real name.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There's a certain logic to the idea that an exile (or outcast or renegade) would forfeit his name.

Food for thought, anyway.