How to understand the rash of NYT headlines beginning with "How."

First, here at the headlines that begin with "How" on the front page of The NYT as I write this:

• How the El Paso Killer Echoed the Words of Conservative Media Stars
• How Facebook Is Changing to Deal With Scrutiny of Its Power
• How a Nanny’s Adventure in the U.S. Ended in Bloodshed
• How to Stay Financially Stable When the World Might Be Falling Apart
• How to Make Parent Friends
• How I Came to Own My Name/My parents never told me that they had changed my name from Tiffi to Lauren when I was 6 months old. Would I have been a different person as Tiffi?
• How YouTube Radicalized Brazil
• How Do We Say ‘Have a Good Night’? Let Us Count the Ways
• How Bill de Blasio Went From Progressive Hope to Punching Bag
• How to Plan a Wedding. (Or, You Could Just Elope)

Writing my own post headline beginning with "How," I saw the charm, the con. It gives the reader the feeling that something will be explained. There's a gift of understanding inside. And yet it seems practical and down to earth, even when it's selling a theory (like the causation between conservative media and the El Paso murders).

You can test your personality by asking which of today's NYT "How" headlines you'd click on. I can tell you I only felt motivated to click on one. You can test how well  you know me by guessing before clicking to read more.

From "How I Came to Own My Name/My parents never told me that they had changed my name from Tiffi to Lauren when I was 6 months old. Would I have been a different person as Tiffi?" by Lauren DePino:

In the tradition of the radical feminist Kathie Sarachild, who named herself after her mother and coined the phrase “Sisterhood is powerful,” my mother, Catherine Gracechild, identifies nominally as the child of her mother, Mary Grace. My mother is a rule defier, a pantsuit wearer, a reiki master and a tarot card reader. She taught high school English for three decade....

As Catherine Gracechild tells it... she delegated the task of naming me to my middle sister, Shayna, who was 10 years old....

“I changed your name because the other teachers where I taught thought Tiffi sounded like a stripper,” my mother finally said....

“So what if I were a stripper, or more sexually free for that matter?” I asked.... Lauren was called onstage on high school graduation day to receive the plaque for the student who best exemplifies Christian values. Lauren was president of the National Honor Society and student of the month. But what about Tiffany? I needed to know how it felt to be her....

I told my friends and family I would answer only to Tiffi for three weeks. The more people referred to me as Tiffi, the more I started to feel like her. To feel like her was to assume a rebelliousness — to become unshackled by the conventions I had allowed to dictate my days. Two of my girlfriends took me out and dressed me as the stereotype of what I imagined a Tiffi would be. Instead of wearing yoga clothes and sweats, I wore short skirts and form-fitting tops. I wobbled in high heels. I stopped straightening my hair. I let my curls — the conflicting mixture of ringlets and limp wisps I was born with — be their wild selves....

When someone calls your name, you hear them as they see you. You hear how they hold you (or don’t) in their voicings of you....

Of course, it's not the name itself but what you hear in the name. You can't redo the past and find out what life would be if you were addressed with a different sound. But you can fantasize about the other You, the You you would be if not for X. Where X is just a name, you can change your name to that name now, but it's not really the experience of growing up with a name, and you're loading into it all the ideas you have about that unlived other life you might have had.

Do you know the other name that might have been yours, the second-place name in the name-choosing that happened you? I do. The name is Amy. My parents wanted something short that began with A.

How Life Would Have Been So Different If I Had Been Amy — title for an unwritten blog post.