The Power of Naming When he enlisted in the army toward the end of World War II, my father changed his name. A Jewish refugee from Germany, he was traumatized by and ashamed of his heritage, so perhaps that had something to do with his rejection of his birth name, yet it was also common practice back then for immigrant soldiers to change their foreign names to English ones. In any event, Karl Heinz Stiebel become Charles Harry Stevens. Did this matter? Changing his name made it easier for him to pass as “white,” which he did. At one point, though he considered himself an atheist, he attended a Methodist…