Craft Names

We all know that names have power and they can even influence us, consciously and subconsciously. Most of the time if you've been practicing long enough, you'll find your craft name, a name that sums up who and what you are. Sometimes finding your name can take years and sometimes a person's name changes multiple times as their beliefs and practices change.

I'd like to invite the coven to a discussion on craft names. I'm not going to list any discussion prompts, if you feel what you would like to say is relevent to the subject, please feel more than free to share.

Some people believe that knowing the name of something or someone gives you power over them. When doing a spell on someone, it helps to have a specific representation of that person such as a name. There are 2 belief about how craft names can be used to protect the practitioner. The first is that it is used to identify the practitioner to spirits they work with and seperate their influence during ritual from mundane life. This name is meant to be a better representation of the practitioner than his or her birth name.

Another reason is that in some covens, members only know each other by their craft names and works as a veil of secrecy to prevent members from outing one another as witches to people who shouldn't know. This is less of a problem these days so members often know each other by craft name and legal name.