The Importance of Names
As we noticed early on, the characters in Song of Solomon all had very peculiar names. Whether it be very unusual like First Corinthian or whether it be more of a nickname like Milkman, Morrison has hidden a much broader and deeper meaning behind many of the names she assigns the characters. Perhaps the most important idea Morrison attempted to convey was the idea that the more familiar/popular name is often more descriptive than the more original or recorded name given to places or people. We can see several examples of this throughout the book, starting with Milkman himself. While Milkman's official name is Macon Dead III, that doesn't show much other than his biological relationship to his ancestry. However, his nickname Milkman provides us more than that, giving information on the nature of Milkman's unusual relationship with his mother, being breast fed way past the age one usually stops, which everyone in the town seems to pick up pretty quickly from this nickna...