“What’s in a name?” William Shakespeare asked. Donald Trump’s answer: “ME!”

“名字里有什么？”威廉·莎士比亚曾这样发问。唐纳德·特朗普的回答是：“我！”

President Trump’s long love affair with his own name and likeness is peaking in his second term. There’s now the Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace and the Trump Kennedy Center, the performing arts venue. There are Trump Accounts for newborn babies and Trump Gold Cards for wealthy U.S. residency-seekers. Giant Trump portraits have been hung from select federal buildings and smaller ones will appear on national park passes. Coming soon: a so-called Trump class of battleships for the Navy and a Trump commemorative coin to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary.

特朗普总统对自己名字和形象的迷恋在他的第二个任期达到顶峰。如今，美国和平研究所被冠以“唐纳德·J·特朗普”的名号，国家级表演艺术殿堂肯尼迪中心也成了“特朗普肯尼迪中心”。有为新生儿设立的“特朗普账户”，也有为富裕移民申请者准备的“特朗普金卡”。一些联邦建筑外悬挂起巨幅特朗普肖像，国家公园的通行证上也将出现较小的肖像。即将登场的还有所谓“特朗普级”海军战舰，以及为庆祝美国建国250周年而发行的特朗普纪念币。

This, of course, is the second chapter of Mr. Trump as eponymous self-promoter. In the first, he put his name on the projects he built as a developer. And in the 2000s, largely based on his fame as host of “The Apprentice,” he turned his name alone into a lucrative product, attaching it to steaks and wine and get-rich seminars and resorts and on and on. Not all ventures left satisfied customers behind — Trump University paid settlements to students claiming fraud — but he reaped millions by staying true to advice he posted on Twitter in 2013: “Remember, if you don’t promote yourself, then no one else will!”

而这显然已经是他以自己的名字进行自我推销的第二篇章。第一篇章中，他以房地产开发商的身份把自己的名字印在所建造的项目上。到了21世纪初，主要凭借主持真人秀《学徒》的名气，他干脆把“特朗普”这个名字本身打造成一项利润丰厚的商品，用在牛排、葡萄酒、致富课程、度假村等各类项目上，几乎无所不包。并非所有生意都让顾客满意——特朗普大学因学生指控欺诈支付了和解金，但他始终秉持自己2013年在Twitter上写下的忠告并由此赚取了数百万美元：“记住，如果你不推销自己，就没人会替你推销！”

That marketing strategy endures as he now pursues the golden legacy he believes he deserves. But as Mr. Trump normalizes norm-shattering, this self-aggrandizement, unheard-of in the history of the presidency, puts him in the company of conquerors and dictators.

这种营销策略延续至今，他正追逐自己认为理应属于他的辉煌传承。然而，随着特朗普不断将打破常规的行为常态化，这种在总统历史上前所未有的自我吹捧令他与征服者与专制统治者者为伍。

Alexander the Great did it, naming around 70 cities after himself in the empire he assembled in the 4th century B.C. through military might and massacres. So did Stalin, the Soviet leader who renamed Tsaritsyn as Stalingrad while also naming other cities across his domain for himself. Napoleon rechristened the Louvre as the Musée Napoléon when he was in power. Plazas named Adolf-Hitler-Platz proliferated in Germany and territories occupied by the Nazis. Mao Zedong’s cult of personality was all-inclusive, including his giant portrait overlooking Tiananmen Square and his “Little Red Book” of sayings that was required reading (and memorization) across China.

亚历山大大帝就曾这样做过，他在公元前4世纪通过军事征服与屠杀建立帝国，并以自己的名字为其中大约70座城市命名。苏联领导人斯大林亦然，他不仅将察里津更名为斯大林格勒，还在统治疆域内以自己的名字命名了多座城市。拿破仑掌权时把卢浮宫改名为“拿破仑博物馆”。在德国及纳粹占领区，以希特勒命名的广场比比皆是。毛泽东的个人崇拜则无所不包，包括俯瞰天安门广场的巨幅肖像，以及在全国被要求阅读、背诵的《毛主席语录》。

北京天安门广场的巨幅毛泽东肖像。

The common move for leaders inclined to such self-aggrandizement is to name spaces and structures after themselves. The former ruler of Turkmenistan went an audacious step further, once naming a chunk of time — an entire month — after himself.

对倾向于自我膨胀的领导人而言，为场所和建筑冠名是最常见的做法。土库曼斯坦的一位前领导人甚至走得更远，曾把一整段时间——整整一个月——以自己的名字命名。

Saparmurat Niyazov, the dictator who led the former Soviet republic from 1991 to 2006, first gave himself the title Turkmenbashi, meaning the father of the Turkmen, and then applied it to January, too. (Mr. Nyazov also renamed April for his mother and October for one of his books.)

这位独裁者名叫萨帕尔穆拉特·尼亚佐夫，1991年至2006年统治着这个前苏联加盟共和国。他先给自己加封“土库曼巴希”的称号，意为“土库曼之父”，随后又把这一称号用来命名1月。（尼亚佐夫还把4月改为他母亲的名字，把10月改为自己一本书的名字。）

Of course, all leaders want lasting recognition. In the United States, past presidents have raised money for elaborate presidential libraries documenting their administrations.

当然，所有领导人都希望获得长久的认可。美国历任总统都会筹款兴建规模宏大的总统图书馆，记录他们的执政历程。

“It’s about fame, and fame is immortality,” said Maoz Azaryahu, an emeritus professor of cultural geography at the University of Haifa who has studied the political and historical significance of naming streets and other public spaces.

“这关乎名声，而名声就是不朽，”以色列海法大学文化地理学荣休教授毛兹·阿扎里亚胡说。他长期研究街道及公共空间命名的政治与历史意义。

But there is a clear line between leaders memorialized after death or departure from office, and those who impose their names while in power (or get loyalists to do it). “In the 20th century, it’s associated with totalitarian rulers,” he said. “It seems to me that such efforts at self-aggrandizing through self-commemoration offend notions of good taste in democratic-liberal societies.”

但是，那些在去世或离任之后被纪念的领导人与那些在掌权时就把自己的名字强加到各处（或让忠诚者替他们去做）的领导人之间，有着一条清晰的界线。“在20世纪，这种做法通常与极权统治者联系在一起，”阿扎里亚胡说。“在我看来，这种通过自我纪念来抬高自己的做法有悖于民主自由社会的良好品味。”

萨帕尔穆拉特·尼亚佐夫的雕像，他是他是1991年至2006年统治土库曼斯坦的独裁者。

This does not seem to concern Mr. Trump, whose hunger for public displays of adoration is well known. Consider, for example, the ritualized slathering of praise during cabinet meetings.

这显然并未困扰特朗普。他对公众崇拜的渴求众所周知。内阁会议上那种仪式化的奉承赞美就是一个例子。

What might be a concern, though, is the reckoning that often happens when mortality catches up with the search for immortality. The Musée Napoléon returned to just the Louvre. Stalingrad is now Volgograd. Hitler’s plazas died with the man. After all, just a couple of keystrokes of history separate famous from infamous.

不过，真正可能令人担忧的是，人终有一死，对不朽名声的追逐走到尽头时往往会迎来清算。“拿破仑博物馆”重新变回了卢浮宫，斯大林格勒如今叫伏尔加格勒，希特勒广场也随其本人一同消失。毕竟，历史的键盘只需敲击几次，声名显赫就可能沦为臭名昭著。

A happier ending to the desperate search for fame can be found in the 1954 movie “It Should Happen To You.”

关于这种绝望追逐名声的行为，1954年的电影《模特儿趣事》(“It Should Happen To You”)有一个更温暖的结局。

A young out-of-work model named Gladys Glover, played by Judy Holliday, comes to Manhattan “to try and make a name for myself.” She rents a large billboard displaying only her name on Columbus Circle, across from where the Trump International Hotel & Tower now stands. Eventually her name graces multiple city billboards and people notice. They clamor for her autograph. Television covers her. An agent soon has her pitching soap, cigarettes and weight-loss drinks.

片中，朱迪·霍利迪饰演的失业年轻模特格拉迪丝·格洛弗来到曼哈顿，“想要闯出点名堂”。她在哥伦布转盘广场——正对着如今的特朗普国际酒店大厦——租下一块巨大的广告牌，只印上自己的名字。渐渐地，她的名字出现在多块城市广告牌上，人们开始注意到她，争相索要签名，电视台也蜂拥报道。不久，经纪人便安排她为肥皂、香烟和减肥饮料代言。

When the agent gets the military to put her name, not on a class of warships but on an airplane, she awakens to the hollowness of fame. She realizes she doesn’t deserve her name on a military plane. The troops, not Gladys Glover, are the heroes.

当经纪人设法让军方把她的名字印在一架飞机上（而不是某艘军舰上）时，她才意识到浮名的空虚。她明白，自己并不配让名字出现在军用飞机上。真正的英雄是士兵，而不是格拉迪丝·格洛弗。

Life, she tells her agent, “isn’t just making a name; it’s making a name stand for something even on one block, instead of for nothing all over the world.” It’s a line her frustrated suitor, played by Jack Lemmon, delivers early in the movie. Now they reconnect as she chooses the true love of one person over the adoration of the crowd.

她对经纪人说，人生“不只是扬名立万，而是要让这个名字有点意义，哪怕只是在一个街区里，也好过在全世界到处出现却毫无价值”。这其实是影片开头她那位郁郁不得志的追求者（由杰克·莱蒙饰演）说过的话。最终，两人重新走到一起，她选择了一个人的真爱，而不是人群的膜拜。

女演员朱迪·霍利迪在1954年的电影《模特儿趣事》中饰演格拉迪斯·格洛弗，