Some of you may know that, out of respect, many Jews choose to address God by, simply, "Shem," which means "the name."  Christians and Muslims may find this odd, most of them choosing to address God by, alternately, "God" or "Allah" (the Arabic name for God), supposing it to be a more personal form of address.  On the other hand, our Jewish brethren may have it more right than we think.  When we consider the theological enormity of God, that in God is the ultimate source of life as well as the beginning of communication and speech, we see the wisdom of addressing him as, simply, the "Name." As does the "Name" identify God, so do our names identify us and set us apart.  Our names are our face to the world, the starting point of our entry into interpersonal exchange.
     Yet we were to suppose that there is no God, and that the cosmos therefore has no overriding purpose and meaning, then our names would mean little.  Though we would still name each other, we would really have no reason to do so:  in a world devoid of purpose, how can we?  But if God, the ultimate "Name," is there, and if God the "Name" is communicating and grounding the universe with purpose and point, we have every reason to identify ourselves.  We have meaning.
     To address God as the "Name" is to therefore affirm that we have genuine distinctiveness and presence, and not that we are, as Paul Sartre put it, "useless passions" running around with nowhere to go.