Rabbi Meir was traveling and stopped for Shabbat at an inn. The innkeeper's name was Kidor. Meir did not like the name. It reminded him of a verse in Deuteronomy 32:20, where God warns of judgment against a generation He calls ki dor tahpuchot hemah — "for they are a generation of perversity." The first two words, ki dor, sounded exactly like the innkeeper's name.
Meir said nothing aloud. But before sunset, as he prepared for Shabbat, he quietly took his purse of coins and hid it in a secret place outside the inn. His traveling companion trusted the innkeeper and left his money in his room.
On Sunday morning, Meir's companion discovered his money was gone. Kidor, when questioned, swore he knew nothing. Rabbi Meir went to retrieve his own purse and found it exactly where he had hidden it.
Gaster's Exempla (1924), No. 315, preserves the teaching plainly. A name, the sages held, is not decoration. A name is a quiet revelation of what a soul is carrying. Rabbi Meir was not being paranoid; he was being attentive. He had listened to the syllables of Kidor the way a musician listens to a note that sounds a little off.
There is a rabbinic principle called siman u'shmo ke'echad — the sign and the name are one. Sometimes Heaven hides a warning in the introduction.