A Rose by any other name…
It is amazing what burdens parents are willing to impose on their children when they select their names. A friend of mine at school in Germany was christened ‘Manny-Manny’ (which always sounded like ‘money, money’), and I always pitied him for the giggles his name produced when first encountered. Sometimes it’s just unimaginative: another friend had the surname ‘Michaelis’, and his parents must have spent all of 12 seconds thinking about it before they named him ‘Michael’.
But spare a thought for people who (genuinely) are called ‘Justin Case’, and ‘Barb Dwyer’, as reported by a website specialising in advising on children’s names. Or ‘Paige Turner’ and ‘Rose Bush’.
Some parents should never be let near the Registry Office.
Explore posts in the same categories: culture, society You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
February 28, 2010 at 8:08 am
There’s a lot to names and if you are interested I recommend a book called Quirkology by an English psychologist called Richard Wiseman which discuses a wide array of quirky psychological research. One of the facts he documents is that many peoples professions coincide with their name (bakers called Baker etc), more than can be explained by chance (I remember dealing with a bank official in
Paris whose surname was Finance). He also documents a correlation between people’s names and the states they live in, lots of Georges in Georgia, Ken’s in Kentucky etc.
I find names very suggestive in that if a name has a particular meaning I subconsciously attribute it to the person: so in my mind John of Gaunt must have been a pretty emaciated guy, Pat Short is of diminished stature (he’s not really) and I try not to think about the English scholar Mary Beard..
February 28, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Yes, I’ve also read somewhere that there is a disproportionate number of bakers called Baker. I wonder how this happens. And what profession should I have found myself attracted to, in that case?
February 28, 2010 at 7:00 pm
A von driver? (sorry, the best I can do). I suppose you could have joined Franz Ferdinand…
February 28, 2010 at 2:23 pm
I have met Mary Beard and I am sorry to have to admit my memory of her is coloured by her name: I know she has no beard, but I do attribute to her a romantic novelty, adventurousness, self-reliance and originality that comes, at least in part, from my childhood dreams of running away to join the circus.
February 28, 2010 at 10:36 pm
I got some financial advice once with a person who signed their letters A. Chancer. It was surprisingly good advice!
February 28, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Of course having the surname Citizen gives people odd expectations of me.
March 1, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Sometimes names are traditional in a family (I blame the 12th century in my case) and parents are blind to how they sound.
March 2, 2010 at 8:29 am
I can’t resist adding my favorite German one…
Mira Bellenbaum