What's in a name?

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:06 pm

My family name was originally 'Saslavsky,' however at
Ellis Island circa 1900 this became 'Saslav.' Then somebody
decided to change it to 'Saslaw,' thereby making it
a name no English speaker could wrap his tongue
around. My parents, looking for something appropriately
messianic, named me 'Shepard Ames Saslaw.'
Note that 'Shepard' isn't spelled as one would
expect, a nice touch. The name is a standing
invitation to 'Shepard Ames to Please!'
Also 'Shep,' which I was often called,
invites, 'Shep the Schlep.' This wasn't lost on my
contemporaries. Just when I reached puberty
Elvis P. came out with that old favorite
'When I was a boy and Shep was a pup.'

Above all, there was no way I could play right field
for the Yankees, one of my childhood aspirations.
Consider: 'Here's the pitch... I'ts a high fly to right
field. Shepard Ames Saslaw is going back, back....'
Hopeless.

As I grew older other difficulties emerged.
This was a common scenario:

"Alright, young man, the dentist will see you Tuesday at
ten AM. Now what's your name?'

'Shep.'

'Skip.'

'No, Shep. S, H, E, P. Shep.'

'Alright, what's your last name, Chuck?'

In my early thirties, having suffered enough (and there
being nobody left to care), I went to court and legally
changed my name to 'Jim Stone.' I dutifully notified
Social Security, got a new Social Security card
as 'Jim Stone,' got a new driver's license, passport.
I had escaped, I thought.

I'll be 62 this month, so I called Social Security
in Washington to arrange to begin collecting
benefits. After the lengthy wait,
I gave the lady on the other end
my social security number.

'Yes, we'll set up an appointment for you at your
local office, Chuck,' she said.

'I'm not Chuck. I'm Jim Stone.'

'No you're not. You're Chuck Aims Shashaw.'

'I have my card before me as we speak. It says 'Jim Stone.'

'We have no record of that, Mr. Slaslaw.'

'I've done my part, believe me please believe me,
I'm Jim Stone.'

'You don't get much of a pension from your university,
do you Chuck?'

'Oh, about enough for a cardboard box outside of
Mexico City. It's 'Jim,' by the way.'

'Well, Chucky, due to new rules we deduct a percentage
of your pension from your social security benefits.
You will collect thirty-five cents a month. If you wait
till you're 65, it will go up to a dollar fifty.'

'It's Jim. What am I going to do with thirty-five cents a month?'

'Have you considered upgrading to plywood, Sheppy?
By the way, do you remember that Elvis had a song that went
'When I was a boy and Shep was a pup'? You do aim to
please, don't you?'

Please don't let this happen to your child! best

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:46 pm

I hate to say it, but I've already screwed up my youngest. His name is David Gabriel Clement, and he goes by Gabe. Unless he makes a change, he's in for a lifetime of saying just that: "I go by Gabe."
Oddly, because the name Gabe is somewhat uncommon, when we say "this is Gabe," people often reply, "Dave?"

Post by **Nanohedron** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 1:54 pm

Our shop had a client whose last name was Pudlick. I kid you not. He was always in a bad mood. Imagine that.

What price, hewing to the family name! I wonder that he never changed it to spare himself the ignominy such a name would incur in the US. At least he might have done so for the sake of his children.

markv · Post by **markv** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:02 pm

I had many of my childhood friends convinced that my middle initial "C" stood for Cheech. "They named me after their favorite actor" I would say. Worked well until they met my parents initially then they didn't believe me unless they got to spend more time with my parents. Then the seeds of doubt crept back in.

Mark V.

I've doomed my daughter to annonymity by naming her Emily. We usually just use "Em". That saves mom a little time. She can yell "Em Vanek get in here" in that voice that only mothers have and we both come running. Son was almost Calvin but my wife was a big Calvin and Hobbes fan and had vivid mental images of standing on the back steps yelling "CALVIN!" So his name is Ryan.

antstastegood · Post by **antstastegood** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:07 pm

My parents decided to spare me anything weird, and named me John.

This also has its downside, as it's the second most common first name in America, just behind James. There were once four of us in one high school classroom. I can't very easily go by my last name, because it's Polish and 10 letters long. Middle name's Daniel, but it somehow doesn't work for me as a first name.

DCrom · Post by **DCrom** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:12 pm

Not too bad. My wife had a former coworker (a very nice Vietnamese girl) who was burdened with Dung as a given name.

My mother seemed to like adding a touch of unusual to names. My brothers and I were named (oldest to youngest, all male):

Dana Lee Crom
Cameron Charles Crom
Eric Kindel Crom

At least the youngest got a less-uncommon given name. But that middle name was sheer cruelty - he has flaming red hair. (Being called "Eric the Red" was bad enough. Imagine all the Kindel/kindle jokes he heard growing up.)

Middle brother thought he got off lightly, until he heard (true or not?) that "Cameron" means "Gourd Nose" in Scots Gaelic. And he *does* have a bit of a beak on him. . .

My wife thinks this is all funny - she asked me if I wanted to name our firstborn (a girl) "Dana Lee Crom, Junior". To be called "Junior", of course. Much as I love her, that woman has a warped sense of humor. Good thing I didn't give in - our daughter takes after my side of the family, anyway. At least (since she was 11 or so) nobody ever mistakes the kid for a boy.

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:46 pm

Thelonius Monk was asked if kids in school made
fun of his first name. 'No, that was too much for them,'
he said, 'but they did call me monkey, and man, you
know that was a drag!'

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Wed Mar 03, 2004 7:06 pm

markv wrote: I've doomed my daughter to annonymity by naming her Emily. We usually just use "Em".

That only applies to Emilys born after, say, 1990.
Try being an Emily born in '61, with a daughter named Olivia born in '90. People reverse our names on a regular basis.

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 11:01 am

Hey Jim, did you keep the middle name of Ames? That's my middle name too, and my nephew's as well. I was kind of embarrassed of it as a kid, but I kinda like it now.

My last name, however, is Rusche. I like it and all, but in my 35 years, 4 people have pronounced it correctly from having only seen it and not heard it, and one of those then pronounced it wrong the next day. (Nobody has ever been able to spell it from hearing it.) It's pronounced ROO-shee. I get a lot of Roosh, Rush, Roo-SHAY (people seem to think it's French, not German), and occassionally Roach. I have no idea where that last one comes from.

My dear and lovely wife decided to take on this challenging name when she married me, because her maiden name is Tyson, and she was sick of chicken jokes and "Is your brother Mike Tyson" jokes. Funny thing is, her brother's name IS Michael....

Steven

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 12:25 pm

Could have been worse, Jim. Frank Zappa named his kids Dweezil and Moon Unit. How perverse can you get? Faced with a choice between those two, which would you choose? He called the boy Dweezil and the girl Moon Unit but I know of no convention that dictated that one was for girls and the other boys.

brownja · Post by **brownja** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 1:52 pm

You'll get no sympathy here...

John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the grave.....

John Brown's baby had a cold upon his chest...

All of sudden, I see sheriff John Brown....

"Did you know there was a famous abolishonist name....John Brown?"

"No officer, I swear, that's my real name...."

"can I see some ID please?...."

In Ireland...
"... John Browne", no it's B-R-O-W-N no E.

Regards,
jb

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 3:07 pm

No, I jettisoned 'Ames' along with Shepard and Saslaw.
What joy!

There was a Brit named newton who named his kid
Hooten. Kid ran off, disgruntled,
and changed his first name to
Tooten.

John Brown, I feel your pain, but you didn't have
to spell your name every last time you
ever used it! And people thought the first
name was spelled 'Shepherd,' the association
with sheep coming from the extraordinarily
popular third grade reader, 'Shep the Farm Dog.'

Snuh · Post by **Snuh** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 3:35 pm

I got off pretty easy with my name:

Alan Joseph Penney

The extra 'e' is the only problem. It's the result of a mistake on my late grandfather's birth certificate that wasn't noticed until ten years later. By then nobody cared to change it back.

I do go by A.J., but that hasn't proven to be a problem. Anyone who meets me in a social context only knows me as A.J. In fact, I think my doctor is the only person who still calls me Alan. It doesn't bother me. I like Alan too. I considered going by Alan when I moved for university, but my friends wouldn't let me.

A.J.

TonyHiggins · Post by **TonyHiggins** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 6:56 pm

I don't have a problem with my name, Anthony Joseph Higgins. I was named after St Anthony of Padua because my birthday fell close to his feast day. Common practice in Ireland at the time, I'm told. My parents didn't want to breed resentment by naming me after one relative and not another. My immediate family still calls me Anthony, everyone else calls me Tony. My sisters and my mom pronounce it with a hard 't'- Antiny the way they do in Dublin. Only my mom has a Dublin accent. One of my sisters, Catherine, is addressed 'Catrin' and Mary is called Marry. My kids think it's funny. Even my wife thinks it's cute. Whatever. One of my cousins in Dublin is married to a guy named Poraig or something like that, pronounced 'Porrig,' one of the derivations of Patrick or Padraig. My 16yr old daughter says the name and shudders. "How could you have a name like that?" Names were never abbreviated in our house; Joseph was never named Joe or David, 'Dave.' It happened later on, of course. Something else my mom could not tolerate was calling someone a name like 'pig.' You could never insult someone by calling them an animal. When one of my kids calls the other one a pig for being greedy, I have flashbacks to my mom's reaction. (The scars I'm left with.)
Tony

blackhawk · Post by **blackhawk** » Thu Mar 04, 2004 7:57 pm

Wombat wrote:Could have been worse, Jim. Frank Zappa named his kids Dweezil and Moon Unit. How perverse can you get? Faced with a choice between those two, which would you choose? He called the boy Dweezil and the girl Moon Unit but I know of no convention that dictated that one was for girls and the other boys.

I feel sorry for Dweezil.

Yours truly,

Darvis (my real name...sorry)