We like names. We have books devoted to names that we pore over to choose names for our children, our pets, sometimes even things like cars and kitchen appliances. There is an old superstition about the power of names -- and although we don't like to think of ourselves as superstitious, we still can't quite shake the idea that a name defines something. A "Harriet" is a different kind of person than a "Nicole," we think. We worry about the meanings of names, namesakes, and name associations.