The Name Game

What's in a name? Quite a lot as I discovered this past Thanksgiving.

Ever since the holiday, when my relatives dropped some great names and stories, I've been thinking about it quite a bit.

Let's take college sports, for instance. My nephew told me that the name of the University of Oklahoma's quarterback is..."General Booty." Yep, not a typo, not a bad dream, not a military title, but more than probably parents with a sense of humor. Or they hated their son.

I mean, I can hear the game announcements already: "Looks like we've got General Booty on the field!" or "Would you look at that General Booty!" or "The ref just made a Booty call!"

Poor guy. No wonder he had to excel at sports. (Although I suppose it's better than being named "Specific Booty.")

Then here in my stomping grounds of Kansas, ripped straight from the basketball team of my alma mater, KU, comes...Gradey Dick! Now on the surface, the Jayhawk guard's name isn't that unusual. But it's become kinda a Big Deal with people on the intronets, trying to one-up each other with naughty posts on Gradey's name. It's even become part of the lexicon of the game announcers (whether they realize it or not). Things I've read or heard include: "Dick is driving it hard on the floor!' and "What we need right now is some Dick!" and "Looks like Dick is pummeling the other team!"

(But don't feel too bad for Mr. Dick. My niece told me some less than pleasant things about the guy. Clearly trying to live up to his name-sake, I suppose.)

While we leave the world of sports behind, let's turn to real-life, shall we? Over the holiday, there'd been some reminiscing about stories from many years ago in Oklahoma. I'm thinking specifically of "Egghead Dinger."

"Egghead Dinger?" I said. "Why was he called 'Egghead'? Or was that his real name?"

"Well," said the anonymous storyteller, "his head looked like an egg."

While I was busy giggling over the poor Dinger, I tried to imagine just how egg-like his head was.

Quickly, my relative added, "But he was a good-looking guy!"

Now, I really was curious to see a handsome egghead.

Perhaps feeling guilty about disparaging Egghead's head, my relative continued trying to make Eggy seem palatable. "He was so good-looking, he married Fannie Mae, who--"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute! 'Fannie Mae?'"

"Yes. Fannie was the school teacher who all the guys--and the kids--were gaga over. She rented an apartment with another local teacher that overlooked the school-yard. All the kids gathered around the yard at a certain time because it became wide-spread that Fannie liked to dress with her curtains open."

Yow! Now I REALLY wanted to see a pic of Egghead and Fannie, two of the best names ever! If I wrote them into a book, all credibility would be lost. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

So I started thinking about horrible names. And why the parents of these horribly named offspring felt the need to punish them for all their lives.

I uncovered Phat Ho, Dick Swett, Mr. Perv (a grade school teacher), Chris P. Bacon (wouldn't you think he'd drop the middle initial by now?), Mike Litoris, Moe Lester, Major Dickie Head (And how is that better than "Richard?"), Dr. Wett Fartz, F. You, and so many more.

You can't tell me these poor long-suffering people were unaware of their names, even with a language translation barrier. There are plenty of bilingual bullies out there. And what kind of sadistic animals are their parents? I suppose some parents find it cute. Then again, most of my cited examples involve (intentional or unintentional) potty humor.

In my ever-diligent research (Hello, Ms. Google!), I found a recent British study of 1,772 parents, with the majority of them claiming they gave their spawn weird names to help them stand out on social media! Dayum! Since when do parents want their kids to be noticed on Tik-Tok, where the likes of "Mr. Perv" goes by the handle of "Sunshiny Unicorn" or whatever? Why, I remember the day when parents wished for their kids to have better clothes, better schooling, and an all-round better life. 

Even more startling is 94% of the respondents claim that made-up nonsense names are "in" for kids!

Huh. So if I were to have another child, I think I'd name it "Poo-Poo Platter." Because I would want my child to have nothing but the best and most visible internet presence. Ever.

While we're on the topic of bad names, my protagonist (of three novels, so far!), chooses to go by "Tex," rather than  his birth name of "Richard." Because bullies early on let him know that "Dick" was short for Richard. But you can't explain bullies' behavior. Never mind all that. Tex has just discovered he's a witch. And there's a serial killer targeting his friends at school. And a lotta other stuff. Check out Tex, the Witch Boy, the first in a series.