What's in a name?

I got called all sorts of things at school, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how people label us and "put us in boxes". I'm not necessarily ashamed of any of these labels, but they all have both positive and negative connotations.

Most followers of Yeshua/Jesus these days are called Christians (Acts 11:26). That seems like a reasonably descriptive name, but there are other cultures that unfortunately find the word Christian repulsive nowadays. Besides, I'm deliberately trying to use the word Messiah more these days. (It's from the Hebrew whereas Christ is from the Greek.) I sometimes think about the Biblical label follower of the Way (Acts 9:2) but that doesn't seem clear enough for today's world. Follower of the Messiah could still be ambiguous and follower of Yeshua perhaps sounds odd.

Then there is the protestant "box". Of course, that's based on the verb to protest, and protesting is not necessarily what I want to emphasise about my present journey.

And with protestants, there is the label evangelical (versus those groups that have become "mainline" I think). I certainly want to be that. And perhaps missionary is related to that, although that's not such a common box label.

Then comes pentecostal. Again, it seems to overemphasise the point -- I do believe the works of the Holy Spirit are very important, but I'm not necessarily wanting to emphasise the experience of the first century disciples on the Day of Pentecost above all else. I prefer the term Full Gospel, but that has also been used by others (as has charismatic) and has certain connotations that I don't necessarily want to subscribe to.

And what about the fundamentalist label? The primary meaning is just one who believes the fundamentals or basic foundational beliefs, but again it contains many connotations in todays world that can easily make it provocative or otherwise misunderstood. Half of me is proud to accept the label, but the other half says it's become a not-nice word in recent years.

And then many would call me a literalist because I believe that God created the world in six days (roughly six thousand years ago) just like Genesis says he did. Now unlike the others, this label I don't really accept at all. I try to interpret the Bible as best I can guess that the author meant each passage to be understood, and the book of Genesis sure sounds like historical narrative to me. So I'll reluctantly accept the first several labels, but outrightly reject this last one. And Goggle tells me that Biblicist seems to mean pretty-much the same thing.

The Jesus freak label was around for a while and it was cool to take that on. But maybe I'm getting too old to call myself a freak now???

But what would I prefer to be called? Something new actually. But I don't know what. "Straight-forward Bible believer" is too long and maybe presumptuous. Do we need to coin a new word, or invent a new compound-word or put a new suffix onto a regular English word? If anything, what aspects of my Christian journey would I like to emphasise? I wish I had a good idea here. Maybe your comments will help me???