What is in a nameplate necklace?

 

Carrie Bradshaw in her eponymous necklace

I got my first nameplate necklace when I was christened - it was silver and in italic Greek lettering, beautifully handmade by a Cypriot jeweller in the mid 1970s. I've had at least five more since then, in both gold and silver, in English and Greek, full name and initials, bracelets and necklaces. There is something so beautiful and personal about the nameplate necklace and what it represents. The Greek lettering necklaces deeply connect me to my Greek roots, and the English ones are somehow more kitsch fun, but I love them all.

In American culture in particular, the necklaces are an expression of cultural identity, self-expression, and appropriation of fashion. In American fashion, the name plate necklace originated in black and Hispanic communities in the 1970s to emphasise how names reflect identity. The necklaces were symbolic of one’s pride in their name, an important affirmation in face of how non-Anglo names are marginalized in our society. The nameplate necklace would later go mainstream when it was appropriated by the show Sex in the City to make a white character look funky. In fact, in the Sex and the City episode when Carrie discusses her famous necklace, she rather cringingly calls it 'Ghetto Gold'.  Carrie Bradshaw, who famously wore a nameplate on the show after Parker’s stylist, Patricia Field, saw "kids in the neighborhood" around her New York City shop sporting the style and decided to put one the iconic white TV character.

My version of the 'Carrie Bradshaw' script necklace

I bought my version of the 'Carrie necklace' in early Y2K at the Patricia Field store in Manhattan. If you don't already own a 'Carrie necklace', chances are you've seen them in music videos, films, fashion shoots – and, of course, in Sex in the City. But the origins and cultural significance of the jewellery goes much deeper than Carrie Bradshaw. 

However, although the necklace is currently in fashion consciousness largely due to it's association with the show, the pieces of jewellery are often so much more than just that; and the way they function socially as a tie to a specific culture and assertion of individuality is much more complex. 

In America, Rosa-Salas (an NYU doctoral student in cultural anthropology) and Flower (a photographer, writer, and former Art Forum editor) started #DocumentingTheNameplate, a project that uses oral history methods to piece together the origins and evolving cultural significance of the nameplate style. In 2017, they co-wrote the academic journal essay Say My Name: Nameplate Jewelry and the Politics of Taste.

The duo's essay and podcast episode both uncover the ways in which nameplates can be used as a case study to understand how race and class intersect to shape notions of taste; for instance, why in some contexts the jewellery is considered "cool" and in others considered "tacky." They also go into how wearing a nameplate can be considered an act of "taking up space" for working-class people of colour. "On the most personal level, wearing one’s name opposes the homogenization and cultural illegibility experienced by immigrants, low-income groups, and communities of color in the United States by making hypervisible the wearer’s unique identity," they write in the essay.

Plus, they point out how the enduring idea that Sarah Jessica Parker popularised the style perfectly exemplifies how upper-class white people are the gatekeepers of "the mainstream." "In our writings and our studies, we were pleasantly surprised at how the nameplate is a really interesting theoretical vessel for looking at a lot of these larger cultural systems or structural mechanisms in place for how information moves around or how it becomes legitimate or not," says Flower.

Nicki Minaj wears a 'Barbie' diamond nameplate

Rosa-Salas and Flower then started hosting public events in which people from every corner of society were invited to be photographed and write down the story and significance behind their pieces. The idea being to centre the "neighborhood kids"—and folks who were once neighbourhood kids—who actually cultivated and popularised the style, but who typically get written out of history. So far, they’ve hosted three events, each with a different photographer in different areas of New York City. Eventually, it will all come together in a book.

"The 'Carrie necklace' is, for some people, one entry point into nameplates that I want to honor and respect," says Rosa-Salas, "but I think we also want to push back on this idea that there is one sole originator for the style and also resist the continual erasure that specifically lower-income Black and brown creative producers often face when their specific aesthetic contributions are brought mainstream."

A young man wears his nameplate on his ear

"It’s not only about nameplates as a material object," adds Flower, "but it’s also about the nature of historiography and the fact that every experience and every historical event or item is fundamentally pluralistic and there is never a linear narrative of what something means."

American culture has a tendency to forget that there is a world beyond its shores.  Indeed, what the duo found when researching the origins of the general style surprised even them—both of whom related to the jewellery through 90s hip-hop culture. They learned, for instance, that in the Victorian era, some Europeans wore name brooches, and around the same time within the Jewish tradition, some wore pendants that said "mizpah" to signify that they were separated from a loved one. In their essay, Flower and Rosa-Salas also mention a friend whose grandmother wore a nameplate as a young Philadelphia woman in the 1940s, and working-class women in New York’s Queens and Long Island who wore nameplates shortly after WWII.

Throughout the various histories, though, they noticed that the theme of needing to assert one's individuality in the face of erasure and displacement was a common thread, and that the style can be linked to global migration movements (as in the case of my 'Elena' nameplate necklace) that have occurred over the past 200 years. And through submitted testimonies, they’ve found that today, people wear and make nameplates all over the world—each with their own history that shapes the aesthetic, font, and way it’s worn.

"We know from our friend in Texas that nameplates are different there; and people in London come to New York to get them; people in Iran wear a specific style; there’s a lot of geographic diversity in how all the pieces are manufactured and worn," says Rosa-Sales. "We hope to do our best to try to touch as many of those communities and hear as many of those stories as possible."

My first nameplate necklace as I've already mentioned, was in Greek script and gifted to me at my christening. The necklace had an added significance however, in that it was also the name of my grandmother, and therefore connected me in an even deeper way to my ancestry and cultural heritage. 

'Elena Joy' photographed by Gogy Esparza for Flower and Rosa-Salas' book project, New York

As the duo point out in their essay, “One of the reasons we find [they’re] popular with so many different groups of people is their fundamental emphasis on the name,” they say. ​“Names are the essence of who we are and tell important stories about our lives and family histories. There’s something to be said about the desire to wear one’s name for others to see and how this can be a political expression of personhood. 

“Especially for groups of people who have been marginalised because of racial, ethnic and class-based social hierarchies,” they continue. ​“Nameplates can possibly offer a sense of visibility in contexts where recognition has otherwise been denied or diminished.”

The nameplate holds special significance not just for it's individual design, but because of the significance we place in a name. 

From the reason to why each of us were given our particular name to the historical lineage and significance of what a name has come to represent, our name, beyond it's objective purpose, encompasses what and who each of us is. It's essence is at the very heart of our existence. It signifies what tribe you came from.

 In Homer's Odyssey, the eponymous hero, Odysseus, spends the entirety of the epic poem trying to return to his wife and child after the Trojan war and reclaim his identity as 'Odysseus'. On one of his escapades, he tricks the Cyclops by telling him his name is 'Nobody' (when he attacks the Cyclops, the Cyclops calls out to his friends that 'Nobody' is trying to kill him and hence nobody comes to his rescue and Odysseus is able to escape. Clever no?) However, as a hero, Odysseus cannot be a nobody. The rest of the poem reflects on his journey home and re-claiming of his great name. 

I've digressed slightly, but the point is that the significance of a name as who we are and where we have come from is not a new notion - it's not even hundreds of years old - but thousands of years old. So when you wear your nameplate, wear it with pride, for your nameplate is more than 'Ghetto Gold'.