What's in a name?

"I have a very good friend in Rome called Biggus Dickus." This is a line from the Monty Python movie "Life of Brian" and is one of the funnier concepts which seems to be commonly understood. I doesn't matter where you go or to whom you speak, names are a good way to break the ice. I remember liking my name. I remember hating my name. I remember hating my middle name. Weird, isn't it?

I have often joined conversations already in progress where the participants are talking about names. It seems to start with, "I knew a kid in school once whose name was Austin Healey." That leads to, "...I went to Doctor Bottoms for my hemorrhoids," or "...we could never get Harry Knuckles out of the bathroom and we never knew why." Episodes of The Simpsons featured Bart calling Moe's and having a certain funny-named fictitious customer paged. Michael Hunt, Al Kahalic, etc. My dad's personal favorite was Herbie Hynde (or perhaps Lavica Trickleson). It seems we all get the humor of this.

Visit http://www.namehumor.com for more fun.

My contribution to this was a brother/sister combination in high school whose names were C0c0 and P@nda Head. (I obfuscated their names so they wouldn't be searchable.) I didn't actually know them but they were the best I could do when joining in the conversations on funny names. My sister dated a kid whose last name was Woodcock. (perhaps she will list them in a comment to this blog) He had a string of replacement names for his last name that he had collected over the years. My wife has a cousin who married a Dick. He is a dentist. Dr. Dick. So, her last name is Dick, and she has a bunch of little Dicks around her house now. My brother's partner is Dr. Slaughter. He is a great surgeon. A great guy too, but an unfortunate name for a surgeon.

From the sexual or derogatory names, the conversation usually moves to a mutation entitled "I Can't Believe They Named Their Kid That." This one is great sport. From fictitious lore of Orangello and Lemongello (the story is told of a woman who was shopping and came upon Orange Jell-o and Lemon Jell-o and thought those would be suitable names for twin boys) to a great girl I knew in college named Heavenly Hutchins, names are great conversation seed.

I know naming kids is difficult. Bad name association, name mutation possibilities, and name combinations all filter the name universe down to 2-3 possible names for a kid. Mom says, "No, you can't name him Jerry because I dated a jerk name Jerry and I still spit when I hear his name," then she spits and curls up in a corner sucking her thumb. That's bad name association. You can't name him Buck or Bart because of obvious rhyming words, and you can't name her Delores because of Seinfeld. That's name mutation possibilities. As for name combinations, you can't name your kid Simon Simpson. It just doesn't work.

Celebrities are trying to out-do each other by naming their kids bizarre things. It's not enough that the kid has to be born out-of-wedlock and to a celebrity, but to then bear the name Rumor, Apple, December, or Dweasle. Sure, they'll be well adjusted.

My son has recently started assigning nicknames to all his friends. Their given names are not sufficient so he is quick to rename them something fresh, new, alive. I love that about him. It cracks me up. He has become the namer. Nice. He even did it to himself. He calls himself Gerard Wagstaff.

Finally, the strangest names to me aren't the most peculiar, but the most mundane. I like creativity, I like mainstream, and I like ancient. Contrary to opinion, Domineau is a great name for a girl. What I don't like is: Peter Peterson, Mike Michaels, Tom Thompson, Bill Williams, John Johnson, Bret Bretterson.

Well, that's about all. This is me, Jeff Jefferson, signing off.