Sign Names in the Deaf Community

I encourage you to read this recent @nytimes article, "How a Question on Sign Language Led to a Deeper Look at Deaf Culture".

Name signs are an important component of “capital D Deaf” culture, a term used by some deaf people to indicate that they embrace deafness as a cultural identity. 

The signs consist of gestures that can reflect facets of an individual’s personality, physical features or background. From my own personal experience, I didn't really have a name sign because my name was so short. But as I got older, I was given a name sign by a few of my friends. 

It’s important to note that a deaf person should be the one giving you a name sign. And you can’t give yourself your own name sign. 

Within the deaf community, we often will give sign names to people in prominent positions so that we can easily talk about them and reference them by their name sign. Many presidents have name signs, Obama has one of my favorite signs. 

Growing up, many name signs were often used with the initial letter of their first name. Nowadays, sign names are much more abstract, and more varied based on personality or a physical feature. I’ll have some friends that’ll ask me to come up with their name sign, as if we can come up with a name on a whim! 

I will say that sometimes it takes some time to come up with a sign, but once we do, it’s yours for life.