Intergenerational Name-Carrying

Sor Juana's work was nearly lost to history, yet her name and ideas were carried forward by readers, scholars, and communities who honored her legacy. Intergenerational name-carrying is the practice of ensuring that people—especially those marginalized or erased—are remembered, named, and claimed across time. Across cultures, this is how identity persists: children given the names of ancestors as a way of maintaining connection and honoring lineage, communities speaking names of those killed by violence as a refusal to let them disappear, scholars centering previously ignored voices. For name and identity across cultures, this concept recognizes that your identity is not only your own but also a responsibility you carry for those before you and those who will come after. It's an act of love and justice to learn and speak the names of your people, to understand the histories those names carry, to pass them forward. Sor Juana's name lives now because people chose to carry it. This concept asks: whose names do you carry? How do you participate in intergenerational continuity? Identity across cultures is strengthened through these practices of remembrance and deliberate transmission of names and stories.