Magick/craft names
Or whatever you want to call them. I've seen a fair bit of snark around recently about the issue of craft names, and I'm wondering who reading this identifies with a "magick name," and if so, how did you come by it? If not, what are your reasons against the practice
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For the record, I *don't* think that approach is ridiculous. Pagan fluff is, I think, analogous to fiction writing in that the "don'ts" are less things you should never, ever do than things that are difficult to do well and really easy to mess up. Craft names are fluffy because they're applied reflexively, that people think you should read a book, buy your tools, and take a new name (using the shiny formula approach printed in, as you mentioned, many books) without taking the time to (1) actually live the religion and (2) decide whether your practice merits a new name at all. That they're primarily chosen to (as the snarky comments seem to be saying) look cool. But the name-snarking can be just as unhelpful as the fluffy books, IMO, if they prompt yet more consideration of "how people will react" in the choosing of religious names to the detriment of the personal transformation and honoring of deity that the things are supposed to promote.
What I think newbies need to understand is that religion isn't a race. You have the rest of your life to figure this stuff out, you don't need to come up with something yesterday just so you don't feel left out. And that there's nothing wrong with being yet another "Silver", if that's most genuinely meaningful to you, nor with being the only "Michelle" in a roomful of Rowans, Ambers, and Dolphin Flyingwingnuts.
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