Based on patterns of naming across four generations in first author Lie’s Chinese Indonesian family, it is claimed that naming practices are not just a function of personal taste or cultural habit but rather reflect negotiation of larger-scale political and historical conditions. It is displayed that seeming contradictions and puzzles in the names and naming practices in Lie’s family can be clarified by the specific social and political challenges faced by members of the family, especially during the assimilation period of Suharto’s 1966–1998 reign. Both Lie’s family and the Indonesian state have handled names as having a high level of constitutive power in these negotiations.