The significance of Chihiro remembering her name?
Its been years since I've seen Spirited Away, but lately I've been wondering if there's any philosophical significance re: Yubaba taking away Chihiro's name and Chihiro later realizing her true identity when she recalls that Haku is the spirit of the Kohaku River that saved her life years ago.
Actually, I began pondering this recently as a result of reading the Monster manga series by anime/manga legend Naoki Urusawa. (SPOILERS KIND OF SORT OF BUT I'LL KEEP IT VAGUE) In the volume I was reading, an old, dying man and former East German General tells the protagonist that he had once saved the life of the antagonist and the antagonist's twin sister when they were young children. The young children were dying of hunger and thirst in their attempt to cross the border from East Germany to West Germany, and the place where they would have died was a desert wasteland. I'm not really sure if this is connected to the importance of names in Spirited Away, but when the saying little girl begs her brother to say her name, he tells her that they have no names and that they are one and the same. Eventually, the general saves them, but later tells the protagonist on his death-bed that the antagonist, in that wasteland, must have seen "a world without names". The old man then begs the protagonist to say his aloud, as its the only proof that he ever existed. The protagonist grants the request, and the old man dies.
If you combine these two stories (if you can), does it become apparent that names are the keys to our identities? If I'm a individual, and my name is, say, "Aaron", but I don't know that my name is Aaron, does that mean I don't know who I am? In the case of Spirited Away, which seemed to be largely a coming of age story, that is, Chihiro growing from a spoiled and whiny girl to a far more responsible and mature child, does Chihiro earning her name back mean that we become better people when we earn it? This is kind of a complex question, so any answer will be appreciated.