Boaz and I went to a yoga class this morning, and after class, and after the five minutes at the end of class where we lie down and try not to fall asleep, and after the teacher rang a bell to wake up everyone who fell asleep, we all said goodbye and mimed cleaning our yoga mats and started putting our shoes on. One woman went up and thanked the teacher.

The teacher asked her what her name was, and the woman didn’t miss a beat before answering.

“Well, my yoga name is Priest.”

The yoga teacher then told the unnamed woman who’s yoga name is Priest that her yoga name was Alex. “I chose it because it’s something simple.” she explained.

I’ve never considered adopting a yoga name, and I don’t feel any more likely to do so after this morning. I’ve already chosen domain names and usernames a Hebrew name, and I’ve named plants and Word documents and three now-dead fish. The well is sort of running dry for name ideas, and I need to save a few names for future wifi routers and dogs and limited liability companies.

Maybe when giving yourself a yoga name, the place to start is ruling out possible yoga names. If that’s the case, I’m pretty sure my yoga name isn’t Priest. It might be Alex. Or maybe Alex will be the name of our wifi router or our limited liability company – I do like how simple it is.

This is not a priest, but the yoga studio looks a bit like this so it seemed appropriate.