 Rosenstock-Huessy argues that it is not only from the moment of birth that one is inducted via names—the names of one’s parents, their family, one’s birthplace, one’s own name— but our life is a continuous accrual of names as each person is shaped by his or her experiences, thus developing new qualities or characteristics. Through the course of a life each of us is enmeshed in an expanding cluster of titles that reflect one’s responses to the callings and imperatives of one’s parents, friends, teachers, spouse and children, colleagues, government, society and, far from being least, one’s enemies. Naming is orientating. As he says in Ja und Nein: