Support for WPR comes from North Wind Renewable Energy in Stevens Point,

dedicated to providing distributed energy solutions to communities

through the design and installation of solar electric systems in Wisconsin.

Northwind.re.com.

It's to the best of our knowledge. I'm Anne Strangeamps. What's your name?

Noah, Liam, Mason, Jacob, Emma, Olivia. Your name was given to you with love when you were

born. Over the course of your life, it'll become a kind of second skin, a collection of syllables that

tells other people and you, who you are. How can something so small mean something so big?

My name's Parth Shaw, and I'm a reporter at Wisconsin Public Radio.

Parth is my colleague here at WPR.

He's a young reporter just starting out, and he also hosts a podcast called Hyphen.

He did an episode recently that got a lot of us thinking about the invisible stories that are hidden inside names.

Reporters at the station produce stories for newscasts that aired during rush hour.

Each story ends with what we in the business call a standard out queue.

Maureen McCollum, Wisconsin Public Radio. Gilman Halstead, Wisconsin Public Radio.

Shamin Mills, Wisconsin, Public Radio. I spent a fair amount of time my first few days in the job, trying to figure out how I would say my name in my standard out queue. It was kind of like in middle school when I would practice my signature in the margins of my notes.

My entire life, so school, college, and work, I've been Parth.

Sometimes people have teased me and called me fart or barf,

and sometimes I've been nicknamed things like Parthenon or my personal favorite,

Parther, like Arthur, the character from PBS.

But my name's different when I'm with my family.

My parents don't call me Parth.

...