Thây Minh Nhất has traveled a lengthy and crooked pathway of names.  His teachers have followed the Buddhist tradition of bestowing a new or modified name to mark significant commitments or to acknowledge steps he has taken on the Path and, as you'll see, he's taken the extended tour!  There are many reasons to be given a different or added name; perhaps the most obvious is that the mere change moves the recipient out of habitual thought and comfort zone and into an immediate questioning of the "self."
        Daniel Buckley was named Nagacitta Karuna ("Dragonmind Compassion" in Sanskrit), when he officially became a Buddhist by Taking Precepts in 1985 at the International Buddhist Meditation Center in Los Angeles.  His casual nickname, Nagy, comes from this naming.  When he took Novice Ordination, he was given the title of Reverend Nagacitta Karuna.  This is the name he uses in his prison ministry, (although he became a Venerable after being fully ordained for over ten years). 
        In 1994, he received the High Ordination name of Thích Tâm Hue, in the Lam Te lineage of Most Venerable H.T. Dr. Thích Thiên Ân. 
       When he became a Disciple of Thích Ân Giáo Roshi, he also used the Dharma name Rev. Nagacitta Muktika ("Dragonmind Great Potential") to honor that connection.  In addition, he received the ordination name of Ichigo ("Strawberry" in Japanese), from Thích Ân Giáo Roshi in the Soto Zen lineage of Matsuoka Soyu Roshi.  It is from these names that he founded his prison ministry (Strawberry Dragon Zendo), which has continued through working with the Angulimala Prison Project and Zen Center of Los Angeles.
       Walking the path of the monk, he has learned the fine art of juggling names...

       For this monk, each name marks a commitment and/or achievement. The names don't build upon each other; rather, each naming is an immediate exercise in "impermanence,"  reinforcing the central tenet of "no self" in a visceral way. Now, he has a new title, a new, unfamiliar name AND a new opportunity to experience change while cultivating nonattachment.   Good practice!
        For the rest of us, left with a dilemma here in the Relative Realm of 2010:

        We'll call him Thây (pronounced like "tie") - "Teacher" in Vietnamese. 

        When referring to him, we'll try to follow the Vietnamese custom of respect and a polite distance (which is not the American habit of informality, of "flinging names about wildly") and call him Thây Thích Minh Nhất or Thây Minh Nhất. 

        It will be an interesting practice to see how many of us will find that we cling to one or another of his names -- out of fondness, out of habit?  Are we are agile and aware enough to follow him through yet another change?  For through this name change, we, too, experience a bit of his journey through impermanence: one name at a time, each moment anew.  Are we able to truly see him in this very moment, as he really is:

*Romeo in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (of course)