Just Call Me Voldemort

Nov 20, 2008

Posted by: abandonedboyjon

Uncategorized

Many years ago, when I was in my early teens, I knew a girl named Nicole. We did a seasonal program together. The year after I met her, she was in the program again, but her name was Marie. She had started going by her middle name simply, as she said, because she didn’t like her name. It was the first time I’d ever known someone before and after they’d changed their name and it was admittedly a little jarring, but I understood the reason why. I had had many issues with my own name, my birth name, for years, often fantasizing about changing it or wondering what it would be like if I’d been given a unisex name. But in a lot of ways, I never really thought I’d change it. My name was a part of me. Sometimes I hated it and sometimes I loved it, but most of the time I just wished things were different. Even when I started thinking very specifically about my transition, I still had concerns about changing my name. Did that mean I was giving up a part of myself?

When Voldemort changed his name from “Tom Marvolo Riddle” to “Lord Voldemort’ that was part of what he was trying to do. Even before he knew he was a wizard, he hated the commonality of his name and was bothered by the fact that he shared it with the barman at the Leaky Cauldron. Later, when he knew “Tom” and “Riddle” had come from the Muggle world, he hated them even more, just as he despised the part of himself that was of Muggle heritage. Nothing could ever change where he came from, but after he became Lord Voldemort, there were very few people who would dare to remind him of that fact. With his new name, Lord Voldemort commanded a level of respect; it even surrounded him with a certain aura of mystery. For years the name is not spoken by most of the Wizarding world. Later, at the height of his second rise to power, this level of command manifests itself in the form of the Taboo. By all appearances, it would seem Voldemort’s name change did everything for him he’d hoped it would. He did of course have killing sprees and a bent on genocide to back up the fear the name induced.

One of the things I’ve always found a little funny in Chamber of Secrets, is when you find out that “Tom Marvolo Riddle” is an anagram for the phrase “I am Lord Voldemort.” I always chuckle when I read that, probably just because of the “I am” part, which just sounds a little silly to me. Thinking beyond what a goofball Voldemort can be, I often wonder why he would choose a name that was made from his old name. Often times you see transgender people change their names to something similar to their birth name, only of the opposite gender. Or sometimes the meaning of the name will be the same, as is mine. I don’t think Voldemort was quite that sentimental. It seems even more curious that he wouldn’t want to keep the part of his name that tied him to the Gaunts and to the magical world. Sure, he had no love for the Gaunts, but weren’t they hard evidence that he was related to Salazar Slytherin? His parseltongue and how he was sorted are very strong clues, but that family and the ring he ripped off their fingers were proof. Of course, they weren’t such a great branch of the family tree. And as much as he revered Salazar Slytherin, Voldemort claimed he was going to be the most powerful wizard, ever. So perhaps that mattered little to him. Maybe he was just doodling one day, figured out the anagram, and liked the sound of it.

There is an old ideology about “true names” that has transcended numerous cultures, Celtic, Egyptian, Native American, it’s even in the Bible. Most of the concepts about true names involve the idea that telling someone the name you were given at birth gives them some sort of power over you. We experience this to some extent in everyday life. Say you’re serving a customer at work. All of a sudden, that person asks, “by the way, what is your name?” I usually give mine out because I’m too chicken to be rude, but there’s that long moment of hesitation when I think about what that really means. At the very least, it means the next time they want something they’ll say, “Hey, Jon, can I have some soy milk?” and for some reason that sounds worlds apart from “Can I have some soy milk?”

Dumbledore exercises a certain power over Voldemort when Voldemort visits Hogwarts to ask for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post and Dumbledore insists on calling him Tom. “Harry felt the atmosphere in the room change subtly: Dumbledore’s refusal to use Voldemort’s chosen name was a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of the meeting, and Harry could tell that Voldemort took it as such’ (Lord Voldemort’s Request, HBP). Dumbledore jokes that this is one of the “irritating things about old teachers¦that they never forget their charges’ youthful beginnings.” Though he’s needling Voldemort, there is real truth to this sentiment. Calling someone by an old name can be like looking at an embarrassing baby photo. There’s always ways you were and things you did before you started making all your own decisions that can cause some discomfiture. And with such a personal change, not to respect that change is a low blow. Because in the end, what’s in a name? Had my fantasies been true so many years ago, had I been born a “Rory” or a “Sam’ I probably would have kept my name, but I still would have transitioned. The decision carries more weight than any name ever could. “Lord Voldemort” is just a name. But what that name signifies in Tom Marvolo Riddle’s life is change¦a change that helped him fully become his future self, the powerful, looming figure he had always seen himself to be. And as readers of the Potter books, we can all attest to what a powerful change that was.





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