Gershom comes from ger (stranger/sojourner) and sham (there). Moses named his son this because, as he said, 'I have been a sojourner in a foreign land' (Exodus 2:22). Gershom embodied Moses' identity as an exile — an Israelite raised as Egyptian, now living among Midianites, belonging fully to no land. The name carries both sorrow and hope: the people of God are always strangers on their way home.
Gershom theologizes Israel's core identity as a pilgrim people. God's people are always gerim — strangers and sojourners (Leviticus 19:34). This is not shame but calling. Abraham left his homeland; Israel sojourned in Egypt; the church is 'strangers and exiles' (1 Peter 2:11). The name Gershom becomes a liturgy: we are not home yet. Our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). The exile who trusts God finds that the foreign land is also the place of calling.