Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Infrastructure week. at last.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Let there be snark.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

John Fetterman: Too Manly for Pennsylvania.  Paid for by the Oz for Senator campaign.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

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This post is in: 

Seems slow around here.

I’m racing to finish a chapter (20, of about 25) in the upcoming MS–so yet another delay in my long planned post on ProPublica’s China-virus debacle.

Instead, let’s talk about naming.

More Thread

Actually–about naming disasters. I was today years old when I discovered that the army of treason (aka CSA) had a brigadier general who was actually called States Rights Gist.

Guess we can infer the politics of his dad, Nathaniel.

Still, dude! Have some pity on your child, who, it may surprise you, is not actually simply a billboard for your hateful ideas.

States Rights himself was killed in action at the second Battle of Franklin–which is best remembered as one of John Bell Hood’s signal contributions to the Union cause.

With that–this thread is open, with an especial premium for material on great or greatly ridiculous naming follies.

ETA: I should confess that this post really is an excuse for me to post that painting. OMG–what an amazing piece of work.

Image: Piero Della Francesca, Baptism of Christ, c. 1450

Reader Interactions

174Comments

  1. 1.

    Roger Moore

    It wasn’t that uncommon for people to be named for virtues back then, and Gist’s father clearly believed States Rights were a virtue.  OK, that’s a bit of a stretch, but it does seem like a reasonable way to tie the name to an established naming practice.

  4. 4.

    BC in Illinois

    Old BC family naming joke:

    • “We have a new grandchild. They named him after Abraham Lincoln.”
    • “The baby’s name is ABRAHAM?”
    • “No. His name is Gustav.”
    • . . . .
    • “They named him . . . 203 years after Abraham Lincoln.”

    + + +

    Actual BC family naming account:

    • [BC] “Well the baby has arrived. He’s ____ centimeters and weighs ____ grams.
    • [Mother of BC] “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
    • [BC tells her the child’s height and weight in inches and pounds]
    • [Mom] “And what’s his name”
    • [BC tells her the child’s very reasonable, not-at-all-unusual name.]
    • [Mom] “I’m sure we’ll grow to love the name, dear.”

    She did learn to love the name.

  5. 5.

    Gin & Tonic

    Been way too long since I read the New Testament, but who’s the dude stripping down in the background?

  7. 7.

    CaseyL

    Like @Roger Moore: said, there was a fashion in the 18-19th Centuries among certain sects to name kids after virtues, which is how people got saddled with names like Patience, Temperance, Prudence, Charity, etc.

    Some of the names persisted even after the fashion faded. Mercy and Grace, for example, are “just names” now.  Which is probably better for the kid, rather than being aware that you’ve been named for an entire unmitigated virtue with the tacit expectation that you should embody it.

    It seems the fashion may be reviving, as many people are going as retro as they can to name their kids (or rename themselves!).  Hopefully just because they like the old-fashioned sound, and not the imposed aspiration!

  8. 8.

    Kent

    I have a student in class who is named “Samwise”  He has a little brother at home who is named “Elrond

     

    I’m kind of a Roman history buff and I’m surprised we don’t see more Roman names.  Some of them are very cool.

    Lucius, Valerian, Aurelia Livia, etc.

    I guess we do use some like Camila, Julia, and Marcus.  But there are so many more cool ones.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    One of my great-great grandmothers was named “Experience.” Who could name a by-definition inexperienced baby Experience? A great-great uncle was named “Marvel.” Lots of weird and wonderful and embarrassing names on both sides of my family tree.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    Kind of topical.

    The number of babies in the U.S. with androgynous names is at a record high. The sociologist Philip Cohen notes that more than one in 20 children born in 2021 had names that were split at least 20-80 between the sexes.

    That’s historically unusual.… Source

  14. 14.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    Years ago, there was a player in the Braves organization named Wonderful Terrific Monds III.  Gotta love the name, and especially that he was a three-sticks.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    I should confess that this post really is an excuse for me to post that painting. OMG–what an amazing piece of work.

    What I find interesting is the way they show him being baptized.  They know the story of him going down to the river to be baptized, but they shown him having water poured over his head rather than full immersion.  I’m pretty sure John the Baptist was a dunker, not a sprinkler.

  16. 16.

    Anoniminous

    @Kent:

    There were a raft of girls named “Galadriel” in the middle to late 60s.  Since it means “maiden crowned with a garland of bright radiance” I could think of worse.

    Got curious and looked it up.  It is #16,487 in popularity in 2021

  17. 17.

    Kent

    @NotMax: Unisex names typically drift one way or the other over time.

    Like Tracy, Allison, Aubrey, etc.

    I think more become girls names than the reverse.

  19. 19.

    Origuy

    Tom, your painting got me going through a dive into some interesting pages. The Wikimedia link says that it is currently in the National Gallery in London. The gallery’s site says that it was purchased in 1861 and that Piero made this picture for the Camaldolese Abbey of his hometown of Borgo Sansepolcro. I wondered why it had been sold and who sold it. The Wikipedia page for the Camaldolese doesn’t mention an abbey in Sansepolcro, but they have a hermitage in Big Sur. The page for Sansepolcro mentions Piero, of course, and a place called Convento di Montecasale, which was formerly the Camaldolese Abbey. The Camoldolese order gave the place to the Franciscans in 1213. The Augustinians took over in 1268 and the Capucins have occupied it since the 16th century. So some Capucin abbot in 1861 decided it didn’t fit the decor, I guess.

    I also learned that Sansepolcro is where Buitoni pasta is made.

  22. 22.

    Tom Levenson

    @Origuy: I tend to go visit this painting just about every time I’m in London.

    It really is a magical work.

    Have no idea how it ended up in the National Gallery–but it is nice to know from your post that it appears not to have been by brigandage and looting.

  24. 24.

    JanieM

    @SiubhanDuinne: Baseball names are a topic in itself…. remember Early Wynn?

    But I like the ones where some baseball-loving parent named a child for a player, and the child went on to become a major league player:

    Ryne Duren -> Ryne Sandberg

    Jackie Robinson -> Robinson Cano

    And the news that made me think about this yesterday:

    Derek Jeter -> Jeter Downs

    I’m sure there are thousands of kids who are named after sports stars who don’t go on to be pros themselves, but this still sometimes seems a little uncanny to me.

  25. 25.

    Origuy

    @Kent: Classical names were popular in the South in the 19th century, but they were given to enslaved people.

    Many enslaved men in the colonial period bore the names Bacchus, Virgil, Hannibal, Jupiter, Titus, Cato, Cicero, Hector, Cupid, Primus, Augustus, Scipio, Nero, Hercules, and Caesar, while enslaved women and girls in New England and beyond received classical slave names such as Venus, Diana, Phoebe, Juno, Daphne, Dido, and Flora. 

  26. 26.

    Lapassionara

    Wasn’t there a politician in Texas with a last name of “Hogg,” and didn’t he name his daughters “Ima” and “Ura”? Or was someone joking with me?

  27. 27.

    Jay C

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Agree about the painting being amazing: even though the composition is, on its face, fairly unbalanced, Piero has managed to put everything in just the right place so that the viewer won’t notice it. That’s genius….

    and the dude shucking off at right is probably just there for balance- no iconography probably intended.

  28. 28.

    Old School

    I knew of a guy whose parents named July August September October November, but was known as Jason.

  30. 30.

    Tom Levenson

    @Jay C: I was just reading up on it, and it seems that painting is explicitly designed around geometrical principles. It’s divided in half by the central vertical; it’s divided into the golden ratio by the placing of the tree, and the angels and the background guy going for a dip balance each other.

    Not bad!

  32. 32.

    Anoniminous

    Speaking of looting and bad names: The Elgin Marbles.

    Roughly half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon in Athens. Thomas Bruce Earl of Elgin claimed to have bought them from the Ottoman Empire’s Head Honcho of Greece whose name, amazingly enough, is not found in the very well kept records of the Ottoman Empire.  Currently in the custody of the British Museum and they have no intention of returning the stolen property art works to the victim Greece.

  33. 33.

    catothedog

    @CaseyL:

    Mercy and Grace, for example, are “just names” now.

    Reminds me of the old joke about the lover finally making the choice among his lovers ..

    Lord have Mercy, and grant me Grace

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Origuy:

    So some Capucin abbot in 1861 decided it didn’t fit the decor, I guess.

    Or he had a wastrel nephew (or… “nephew”) who had squandered the patrimony on a dancer or opera singer

  35. 35.

    There go two miscreants

    @Mimi haha: I’ve always been disappointed Petroleum V Nasby is a pseudonym.

    Likewise, especially since in that era it could very well have been real!

  36. 36.

    zhena gogolia

    @Gin & Tonic: I was wondering about that too. Reminds me of the boy in a shirt who’s running away from the tomb in Mark. ETA: I guess it was at the arrest, not the tomb.

    This event occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane the night Jesus was betrayed and captured. Mark 14:51–52 describes a young man who, wearing only a linen cloth, followed Jesus. When he was seized by the Roman soldiers, he escaped capture and ran, leaving the garment behind. The identity of the man is unknown, but since the Gospel of Mark is the only gospel that mentions the incident, many Bible scholars speculate that the young man was John Mark himself, the author of the Gospel of Mark.

    It is impossible to know for sure who the young man was, since the Bible does not specifically identify him. There are all sorts of explanations and supposed hidden spiritual/allegorical meanings on the young man who fled naked. None of them have any explicit biblical support. But we understand that the identity of the young man who fled naked must have had meaning to the original readers of the Gospel of Mark. The identity that makes the most sense, with that in mind, is John Mark.

     

  37. 37.

    Math Guy

    Mine is a very common name. Not quite “John Smith” common, but close. Not only have I had two students who shared my name (first and last), I had a neighbor up the street with the same name (our mail was frequently mixed up), and there was another guy who was one hell of a deadbeat: twice, I had police come to my apartment when they were trying to find him, had a collection agency go after me for his debts forcing me to get a lawyer to sue the collection agency, and I had to convince an insurance agent that I was not him before they would issue me a policy.

  38. 38.

    WV Blondie

    @Lapassionara: I have an extremely memorable name IRL (I’m the only one in the U.S., maybe in the English-speaking world), and I used to complain bitterly to my parents about it. My father always trotted out the story of Ima and Ura Hogg to tell me it could have been worse.

  40. 40.

    mrmoshpotato

    “We’re Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and this is our baby boy Basketball.

    Yes.  We have a Basketball Jones!”

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    @Tom Levenson: Buddy growing up was Tom Payne and dad was a heart surgeon. There were never any jokes about that, no sir. In the neighborhood we also had a Dr. Doctor, M.D. Definitely seemed preordained.

  42. 42.

    WereBear

    In seventh grade I assisted my favorite history teacher and learned that a boy with a nickname was actually named President-Firstname President-Lastname Family-Name (which sounds like a ball of mud hitting a sidewalk) the Third.

    The nickname was in self defense.

  47. 47.

    Fake Irishman

    Ima Hogg was indeed a well-known Houston philanthropist and civic booster. you can visit her estate on Buffalo Bayou.

    edit: meant as a response to #26

  49. 49.

    eachother

    Times change.
    What was once called a battle between First Americans and US Cavalry is now called a massacre.
    The Bear River Massacre. Maybe the largest in US history. 1863.

  50. 50.

    zhena gogolia

    I’ve posted this one before, I heard from a Texas friend that the president of his high-school class (or somebody running for president, can’t remember) was one Dyke Fagg.

  52. 52.

    David_C

    I used to use that painting in my Sunday School lessons. A few interesting points: how the river bed is dry in the foreground but filled with water in the background, of course, the dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit, a living tree in the same plane as Jesus, contrast of the next (?) to be baptized and the religious leaders in their finery, the expressions of the angels…

  53. 53.

    zhena gogolia

    There was a Soviet TV personality named Melor Sturua. He used to be Melors. Marx-Engels-Lenin-Oktiabrskaia-Revolutsiia[-Stalin]

  54. 54.

    trollhattan

    @Roger Moore: Too far from the nearest body of water?

    “C’mon Jesus, the Sea of Galilee is just [counts on fingers] a nine-day walk.”
    “I calleth thee John the Baptist, not John the Endurance Coach.”

  57. 57.

    Leslie

    @Math Guy: There was another person in California with my first and last name. We were at the same college for a while. I never met them, but once got a phone call from their father, who was trying to track them down.

  60. 60.

    Fake Irishman

    @Leslie:

    There was a urologist at a major Cleveland OH hospital for a long time named “Dickman” it was always hilarious hearing him do health news segments the radio for  certain types of men’s related issues.

  61. 61.

    Martin

    @Anoniminous: My favorite confession by a curator there was that if the British museum gave back its looted artifacts, that there’d be nothing left.

    We really need a word that describes the analytical recognition of a truth but the emotional inability of accepting it. It shows up so fucking often.

  62. 62.

    HumboldtBlue

    There is a young man in the NFL named Equanimeous St. Brown.

    It’s also interesting to see how many names from the African American community have become common, such as DeJuan, Devontae, Trayvon. Denzel, Dewayne etc.

  63. 63.

    trollhattan

    @Leslie: Same. My doppelganger lived in Lodi. I’d get phone calls for him and I suspect the reverse occurred, but I never reached out to ask “Did you know there are two of us?”

    Then he died, giving me major heebie-jeebies. [narrator: And thus, there was but one.]

  69. 69.

    PAM Dirac

    @WV Blondie: If you google my last name you get only my family (through first cousins). Eastern European with a lot of anglicized variants and our family just ended up with one that no other family chose.

  72. 72.

    Anoniminous

    @Martin:

    There’s always ….

    Cognitive Dissonance: the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, or emotions relating to behavioral decisions

  74. 74.

    Roger Moore

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Years ago, there was a player in the Braves organization named Wonderful Terrific Monds III.

    IIRC, the story was that Wonderful Terrific Sr. was from a family really wanted a boy, and he finally came after like 7 or 8 older sisters.

  75. 75.

    Martin

    My middle school civics teacher was named Mendel. His full name was Mendel S Sohn. No period after the middle initial since that was his full middle name. Guessing Mr and Mrs Sohn were perhaps a bit disappointed their little boy didn’t become a musician.

    He was a really good civics teacher. The only other memorable teacher from middle school was my French teacher because she was a hottie.

  80. 80.

    M31

    @trollhattan: In the neighborhood we also had a Dr. Doctor, M.D.

    LOL if you’re talking southern CT around 50 years ago I went to grade school with one of their kids

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @oldster: A good number of my Puritan ancestors got names picked from the more obscure books of the Bible.  The male ones.  Shubal, Orsemus, Elnathan, etc.  The women got Ann, Jane, Mary, and Polly. Sylvia is about as wild as they got.  Or Abigail.

  84. 84.

    AM in NC

    @NotMax: That gendered use of names (or not) is so interesting.  When I was growing up my name was not popular at all and mostly used for boys.  When I was in my 20s my name all of a sudden because super popular for girls and every other little blond thing was walking around with my name!

  86. 86.

    HumboldtBlue

    There’s a good “name” sub on reddit, r/normative determinism, matching people with their jobs.

    Tanner Leatherstein does work in leather, Kenneth Gainwell is a running back for the Eagles, Danielle Outlaw is the Philly police commissioner, fire Lt. Les McBurney is here, and of course we all learned of Thomas Crapper.

  87. 87.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    BREAKING: The Jan. 6 committee is preparing to urge the DOJ to prosecute former Pres. Trump on criminal charges, sources tell @ABC News. https://t.co/ux8sDfanp4

    — ABC News (@ABC) December 16, 2022

    According to CNN, 1/6 Committee debating two criminal charges against Trump in Jan 6 Comm's referral to DOJ:

    1. Conspiracy to defraud the United States

    2. Obstruction of Congress https://t.co/dkNEhhGeSk

    — SteelDonkey🆘🌊 (@Steel_Donkey) December 16, 2022

    Alexa, buy 10,000 shares of Amalgamated Popcorn

  88. 88.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Math Guy:

    I remember two Laszlo Toths. The original was the dude who attacked Michelangelo’s Pieta with a sledgehammer.

    His namesake was aka (on SNL) Father Guido “Find the Pope in the Pizza” Sarducci, who as Laszlo Toth wrote letters to presidents and queens, corporations, and celebrities of every stripe, and published them (and their responses) in one of the funniest books ever published. Don Something, can’t remember his last name.

  90. 90.

    M31

    my grandfather came through Ellis Island in the 1920s and was told that his name, which started with a vowel, couldn’t, since that was too ethnic, so random consonants were listed, and grandpa stopped him at one, so my family name is pretty much made up

  92. 92.

    El Muneco

    @CaseyL: Back when I was playing World Of Warcraft, I created a character who was a female Discipline Priest from Gilneas, which is an expy of Victorian England, so I figured that one of the old “virtue” names would be just the thing.

    In WoW, names have to be unique on each server. Well, I was on a fairly well populated server, so I didn’t even try Faith, Hope, Charity, etc. The next tier -Constance, Prudence, Temperance, Clemency – I tried and failed. I consulted a dictionary and ended up with “Probity”.

  96. 96.

    Fake Irishman

    Another one I remember as a newspaper editor was the spokesman for Rochester Gas and Electric: Mike Power. Really good PR guy. Repped the company skillfully but not hackishly. Always called you back no matter how small your media outlet was.

  99. 99.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    One of my not-sure-how-many-great-grandfathers lost his life in the Wyoming Valley Massacre near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1778. He rejoiced in the name Eliphalet.

  102. 102.

    Anoniminous

    Professionally one of the more tiresomely annoying misnames is “Dopamine Reward Prediction Error.”  “Reward” has bugger all to do with it.  Accurately it should be called “Dopamine Outcome Prediction Error.”

    You expect a cookie and you get a cookie – Dopamine does diddly.

    You expect a kick in the shins and you get a kick in the shins – Dopamine does diddly

    You expect a kick in the shins and get a cookie – Dopamine released.  Not because of a “reward” of a cookie but because you didn’t get the predicted kick in the shins

  105. 105.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @M31:

    Thanks, yes. That’s one of those books I’ve bought perhaps a dozen times. Then I’ll “lend” it to someone, and that’s that.

    In all fairness, the first copy I read belonged to a friend. I kinda think I might not have returned it to her….

  106. 106.

    cmorenc

    a bit OT, but about 8 to 10 years ago, for several years there seemed to be an unwritten rule about girls’ competitive-level club soccer teams (and HS varsity teams as well) that each team was required to have at least one player named “Britttany” on the team.  (I’m a soccer ref, and we always had to check the rosters pre-game).

  108. 108.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    @Martin: ​ I have all three books. He appeared on the Johnny Carson podcast to discuss the Lazlo Letters, SNL, and his career in a priceless episode (link)​

  109. 109.

    Roger Moore

    @JanieM:

    But I like the ones where some baseball-loving parent named a child for a player, and the child went on to become a major league player

    The best example of this is Mickey Cochrane -> Mickey Mantle.  As far as I know, that’s the only example where both players are in the Hall of Fame.  FWIW, Cochrane’s given name was Gordon, but Mantle was actually named Mickey.

  110. 110.

    Joy in FL

    I taught 7th grade for years. In one class, I had a boy named Noah and a boy named Jesus. Jesus did not pronounce his name “hay-suss.”

    In another class, I had a student whose last name was Couch and another student whose last name was Davenport.

  113. 113.

    Roger Moore

    @WereBear:

    In seventh grade I assisted my favorite history teacher and learned that a boy with a nickname was actually named President-Firstname President-Lastname Family-Name

    Naming people after presidents isn’t that weird, e.g. George Washington Carver, Grover Cleveland Alexander.

  114. 114.

    gene108

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Roman names or variations on them crop up in Romania a lot.

    When I went to Hungary ten years ago, I met two men named Atilla. I didn’t realize he was still popular.

  115. 115.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Ixnay:

    Many years ago, I knew a very nice research librarian named Forrest Alter. He was an excellent librarian, but I always thought it was a pity that he didn’t become a tree surgeon.

  117. 117.

    RevRick

    Those archangels look awfully judgy to me. BTW, there are seven of them, named Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Jophiel, Ariel, Azrael, and Chamuel. The -el at the end of each name is a shortened version of Elohim, meaning god in Hebrew. Names with Ja, Je, and Jo are shortened versions of Jehovah (Yahweh), meaning I Am ( or variations) and translated as Lord.

    Baptisms in some early churches were done naked and the baptized were given a white shroud to symbolize the renunciation of a worldly past and putting on a new identity, a radical act of counter cultural defiance of Roman imperialism.

  118. 118.

    stacib

    @Old School: My fourth grade teacher was Mrs. May, and she named her daughter April.

    There was also the guy when I lived in California whose name was Harry Bush, and the lady I worked with whose first name was Betty, and she married a Crocker.

    Adding, my grandfather, born in 1905 in MS was named Hercules.  He refused to use it once he came to Chicago, and from 1928 on, he was William.

  120. 120.

    Billcoop4

    A guy two years behind me in College had a memorable name.

    He was named Fallis.

    Richard Fallis.

    Junior.

    BC

  122. 122.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Questions for international travelers: We are heading to the Yucatan in early January.  When you travel do you usually get foreign currency (for tipping etc.) before you leave the US, or once you arrive in destination?  We are BofA which partners with ScotiaBank which has banks and ATMs all over Mexico (including Cancun, where we land) and I believe it’s pretty easy to just get pesos upon arrival.

    Follow up question: do you use a money belt or some other pick-pocket protection?  Not too worried about that since Merida and Valladolid are two of the safer cities in Mexico, but definitely don’t want to lose our ID’s, passports.  Just curious how fellow Juicers approach these things.

  123. 123.

    Roger Moore

    @Leslie:

    I obviously have some experience with sharing my first and last name.  There’s the Bond actor, of course, but also a long-time editor of Dragon magazine, an HOF poker player, a nature photographer, and so on.  I also found out there’s someone in my fairly narrow professional field with the same first and last name when I got to my hotel for our big annual conference and the person at the front desk had to try to figure out which Roger Moore was trying to check in.  I sometimes get contacts from people in industry that were intended for him.

  126. 126.

    NutmegAgain

    An antecedent of mine called Patience had a great-grandmother who, together with her husband, brought a charge of slander at the NH court against Francis Trickey and his wife Sara, 25-June-1656, for saying, “the said Ann Downing did stand upon her head until a cup of wine was taken off the heels of her shoows and that the Kings health was drunken, and more she said that the sayd Ann Downing was drunke.”  Just one of my all time favorite stories–those are clearly the folks you wanted to party with in Puritan New England!

  127. 127.

    Roger Moore

    @M31:

    My grandfather decided to change his name when he came to the US.  It was during WWII, and he thought Kurt Ludwig Landauer might not be the most politic name, which is why he spent the rest of his life as Lewis K. Land.

  128. 128.

    Geminid

    Milton Shapp was Pennsylvania’s first Jewish Governor. Shapp changed his his last name, Shapiro to Shapp around 1937, when he moved from Ohio to Pennsylvania and began a career as a salesman of electronic components.

    Shapp was a graduate of a technical college later amalgamated with Case Western Reserve University, but he’d graduated into the Depression and was hauling coal in a dump truck when he found a job in sales. This was before Hitler gave Anti-Semitism a bad name, and Mr. Shapiro decided that he would be a more successful salesman as Mr. Shapp.

    Shapp served with the Army Signal Corps during the Second World War. Afterwards he made his fortune with an electronics company. Shapp was an ally of John Kennedy and is credited with a proposal that led to the Peace Corp. He went on to win office as Governor of Pennsylvania.

  130. 130.

    Almost Retired

    I have had several cases with an Orange County law firm called Payne & Fears on the other side.  They were great lawyers and pleasant to deal with, but it always freaked out my clients when I told them we were going to a place called Payne and Fears for their deposition.

  131. 131.

    Anne Laurie

    @Anoniminous: There were a raft of girls named “Galadriel” in the middle to late 60s.

    A trend highlighted in a popular kids’ novel, The Great Gilly Hopkins.

    (My parents named me after a pop song — an outdated pop song, but still well known enough that I spent my youth rolling my eyes as people made what they considered very funny jokes about it — so I can sympathize with all these kids!)

  135. 135.

    Ruckus

    @Math Guy:

    Dad was sitting on a Shriners bus for a trip to Las Vegas and a man asked to sit down in the next seat, and introduced himself by his first name. Dad responded “Hi my name is (same name) They did this for the last name which is also the same. And the middle initial – same. Turns out he also had a son named for him with the II added. Which is my name. And they lived about 4 miles from us. The middle name is different but that’s it. I’m not announcing my name here but it’s weird to go to dinner at someone’s house and there are 4 people sitting at the table with the same first and last names and middle initial and the kids are both the second rather than junior.

  136. 136.

    Splitting Image

    I remember being very amused to discover that Ichabod Crane was a real person.

    He was a Colonel in the U.S. army, and Washington Irving met him at some point and was struck by his unusual name. Later on, he used it in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”.

    Crane is actually an interesting fellow. He served in the war of 1812 and his son was a doctor who attended Abraham Lincoln when he was shot in 1865.

  137. 137.

    kalakal

    Mrs kalakal had a brace of great uncles –

    Even & Odward, they were known as Uncle Eve & Uncle Oddy

    There was a kid at my school called Phillip Death – old Norman French pronounced de Ath, I’d love to know what profession he followed

    I don’t know if it counts but my favourite pseudonym is Apollo C. Vermouth which was one of Paul McCartney’s

  138. 138.

    kalakal

    @Splitting Image: For many years the BBCs leading cricket commentator was a guy called Henry Blofeld. His dad had been at school with Ian Fleming. When he asked his dad about it the reply was “We didn’t get on”

    Someone who had the perfect name for a Bond villain was Lazlo Biro – he invented the ballpoint pen instead

  143. 143.

    Zelma

    My mother-in-law was named Zelma Augusta.  She also had a long French last name that was invariably pronounced wrongly.  I attribute her personality to having lived with that name.  BTW, my husband gave his second daughter Augusta as a middle name.  I’m not sure she ever got over it;

  144. 144.

    frosty fred

    Sorry if this has already been pointed out and I’ve missed it, but Miss Ima Hogg was a genuine person; her sister Ura is an urban legend.

  145. 145.

    kalakal

    When Monsieur Bic ( founder of the ballpoint pen company ) died his widow took to funding French politicians. Sadly she was very, very right wing and funded the National Front. The Le Pen jokes just wrote themselves

  147. 147.

    persistentillusion

    @Leslie: My SIL had the same first name and used her maiden name, so we were forever being confused for the other.  Lived in the same small town, to compound the confusion.

    My maiden name is long enough and odd enough that I was in 2nd grade before I could spell it. (Dutch nomenclature in the 16th C became a FU to the Spanish overlords – endlessly long names that related to places.) That initial was added to my first name in the end to differentiate us.

  150. 150.

    persistentillusion

    @M31: My great-grandfather came through Ellis and the person processing the family couldn’t pronounce his surname, so he asked where the family was from and a bastardized version of that town became their surname.

  154. 154.

    Amir Khalid

    There was a recent incident involving the British astrophysicist/TV personality Brian Cox and the British actor Brian Cox, both quite famous men. The former had a problem checking into a hotel room because the latter had just done the same himself, and the hotel thought the former was an imposter.

  155. 155.

    Procopius

    The Christian missionary surgeon who operated on my late wife was named Dr. Butcher. A very good man.

  162. 162.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @redoubtagain:  MLB pitcher and coach Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma (Cal) McLish. (Whose first major league manager, Casey Stengel, always called “Herbert Hoover.”)

    That is hilarious. I think that’s my new favorite baseball story

    @Dan B: there is or was a Very Serious reporter at the Washington Post or NPR named Tom Hamburger, and every time I saw his byline my first thought was always, “Is this some kind of gag column?” I don’t have the same reaction to the name Frankfurter, or just Burger

  163. 163.

    Dan B

    My very tall and rotund 8th grade speech teacher was Twila Stone.  Can you guess her nickname.  Hint: popular TV show at the time.  She married a very short and skinny man, Mr. Gross.  Oy!

  164. 164.

    Dan B

    @Joy in FL: Davenport was my father’s middle name.  His identical twin sisters called him Sophie.  He hated that.  His (younger) sisters were red heads and looked adorable so no one noticed him.

  165. 165.

    Leslie

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: That is one adorable kid.

     

    @Roger Moore: For a while, I was getting emails meant for someone else at another university I attended (but not the same someone else as at the previous college).

     

    @Almost Retired: There’s a law firm called Morrison & Foerster. Their website is mofo.com.

     

    @Ruckus: A friend of mine had a somewhat similar experience. She and her mom met another mom and daughter with the same first and middle names for the moms and daughters. Different surnames, though.

     

    @persistentillusion: I actually have a cousin with the same first and last name, who uses their middle name on FB to avoid confusion.

  170. 170.

    JAFD

    When I was young, ’twas a noted baseball player named Al Kaline.
    In the ’90’s, the city of Philadelphia sent two men to the Pennsylvania State Senate, both named John White.
    One was African-American, the other Euro-American …

  171. 171.

    The Lodger

    @Miss Bianca: I used to work with a Barbadian guy named Roosevelt Ulysses (last name). Named after three presidents and he wasn’t even born in the U.S.

  172. 172.

    Tehanu

    I’ve been collecting unusual names for more than 50 years. The interest came when my home town newspaper published an article about a local insurance agent named Firmin Gryp, who had been featured in a book titled Remarkable Names of Real People.Here’s my Top Ten:
    – Poopa Dweck
    – Prince Octopus Dzanie
    – Hermia Shegog-Whitlock, Esq.
    – Blamoh Twegbe
    – Ethel duPont Barksdale Wack
    – Bruno Putzulu
    – Felicity Twort
    – Hy Hoe Silva
    – Yakpasua Zazaboi
    – Tunua Thrash-Ntuk​​

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