What's in a name?

What’s in a name?  Jasmine, Jyoti, Wife, Jane, Kali, Jase, Jazzy, these are all names that are associated with the main character of the novel Jasmine.  When reading this novel one cannot help but to notice the unusually long list of names that Jasmine obtains throughout the course of her life in the book.  One question immediately comes to my mind when further looking into amount of names Jasmine went through.  Is Jasmine running towards a new identity or is she running away from the past?  Jasmine’s ongoing name changing, to me, is a way to grow closer to the current period in her life.  I believe that Jasmine allows to undergo these name changes because she feels like she will be able easier adapt to her new situation, her name changes almost always came after changes in her life had been undergone.  She would receive these names from people that were close to her at that time in her life.  The fact that people in which she was trying to grow close to were giving her these names it was a lot easier for her to accept these names in order to smoothly continue the growth of the relationship she had started to build with her new name giver.  I believe that her intent by accepting these new names was to try to run towards change, to run towards a satisfaction state.  I believe that although these new names were mechanisms in which Jasmine used to haze her past, I believe that the names had more of an impact in her discovering a new identity. 

Jasmine, Jyoti, Wife, Jane, Kali, Jase, Jazzy

Jasmine seemed to be so focused on recreating herself that the thought of a name seemed so meaningless.  I believe that Jasmine didn’t have much pride in her birth name to begin with, after changing her name for the first time she was never able to create an identity in which she was satisfied.  Her constant changing of identity can be seen as a sign that Jasmine was never able to create a persona that she fully felt content and comfortable with.  I do feel that in her acceptance for her new names were desperate attempts to speed up the process of realization, realization on weather or not “this place” was “the place” for her or if in fact she needed to move on.  I feel like Jasmine was somewhat impatient on her journey and was extremely urgent in her efforts to find the belonging that she so greatly desired.