Name Duck President

So little name traffic these last couple days. I've tripped a cross a bunch of country-club names (things like Bret Whitby, say) but none of them are interesting beyond their collective ability to make me think of tennis rackets, cardigan sweaters, and cold, unloving marriages.

One morsel: Inabinett. That is a name with possibilities, right there. "Hey, honey, if you're done sneezing can you bring me the kleenex?" "INABINETT! [achoo]"

Right. Yes. Indeed.

"and shit yeah it's cool" -- Guided by Voices, "Echos Moran"

Dearth Namer

Not much on the name front today.

Melvina is to Melvin as Kelvina was to Kevin.

Academia was probably born of and raised by nerds, so at least this is pretty much self-contained.

Daniel Tanner. Nothing obvious here, except -- wait, Daniel...Danny...Danny Tanner? Danny Tanner?

Bob Sagat as television's DANNY TANNER?!

Poser Poesy

She tries for New York cool,
but now escapes a groan of truth
as I comment on her accent:
"Let me guess, you're from Duluth?"

The Nomenclature Feature

Coulter. An unremarkable name made conspicuous by pop culture. "Oh, any relation to A--" "No."

Tugwell. If it hasn't been a Bond Girl surname, something ain't right in the world.

Tiina. Another instance of that classic dilemma: is it justified by some cultural context with which I am unfamiliar, or is it just a white trash spelling tragedy?

Peterpaul. I hope this guy goes out and gets hitched to a woman named Annmarie.

Haverland. This is what the fellas from The Proclaimers were going on about in that song of theirs, so far as I can tell. Well you know I'm gonna be, gonna be the man who's Haverland t' you.

Berkery is the best American school for musical studies, according to a recent poll of Japanese high schoolers.

Mediatrix. I don't know how this ended up being a name, but it is AWESOME.

And finally, an instrument of faint praise. Gladish. As in, "well, are you glad to see me?" "I'm...Gladish."

Valerie Name, Covert CIA Operative

Two more names that pretty much guarantee you won't be prom queen:

Sloat
Strnad

And then there's Null, which invites any number of computer science jokes.

Profit is a family with old money, baby.

So, remember "Alyce" from last week? Here's another one for you:

Fenyx. Again, at a glance I actually like this, but the very thin ice between this and a hair-metal band (or a World of Warcraft character) makes me distance myself from it. And how do you suppose it's pronounced? "FENN-icks" (or maybe "FENN-ucks" for the lazier American Schwa approach) gets my stamp of approval, but I worry that "Phoenix" is a strong possibility. Oy. "Former child-star Rivar Fenyx died today of an intolerably misspelled name."

Krystyna. See above, but without the part where I have any affection toward it whatsoever. I dunno, maybe it's a totally legitimate slavic spelling or something; I'd be glad to hear as much. I suspect, however, that it's just bad, bad judgement.

Demistereophonics

I have a broken pair of headphones. Only the right channel works, so I've been listening to music in one ear, and only the right half of the stereo signal. I'm finding that I notice a great deal more about the sound production of a given recording this way, at least more than I would be without sitting down with the explicit purpose of doing so.

I suppose it's because listening to only one half of a well-engineered stereo mix is totally breaking the mix. Some parts that are supposed to blended with or even buried under strong sounds in the left channel pop out this way; parts that are mixed hard left and which I strongly identify with a song are suddenly gone, which changes the feel of the song, and often reveals to me basic tricks to the construction of the mix that are neat to discover.

It's The Name (bum bum) Old Song

Dufault. I don't have to explain this one. It's just amusing by dufault! AHAHAHAHAhahayeahokay.

Chakraborty. Another case of bottom-of-the-barrel "furrin' names 'r funny", but, seriously. IT HAS BORTY AS A SUBSTRING, PEOPLE.

Teagarden. Seems very British. Very punched-on-the-playground, too.

Wang. Of course, for all I know, "Millard" is slang for "colon" in China.

Alyce. Actually, I rather like this, but I can see it losing it's charm very quickly if attached to some manufactured pop-rocker, for example. "Alyce Bright" as the sequel to Avril Lavigne.

And now for a parsing question. I came across the name-string Mahdia Ben Salem in the course of my day. Someone had taken that literal string and parsed it as "Ben Salem Mahdia", first-middle-last name, as if there should have been a comma after Mahdia to suggest it is the surname.

I look at that string and think: first name Mahdia, last name ben Salem, coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the Middle East.

My interpretation holds up a little better under Google scrutiny, but it's times like this that I vaguely wish I'd spent a few years studying names and etymology. Of course, when I get thinking like that I end up racking up about 40 years worth of college to pursue all the mild intellectual fantasies that occur to me in the course of my daily life.

Random thought: a girl named "Jr." Susan Whitstone, Jr. Eh?

Blame It On the Name

Wan-Ek Phromchotikul. I realize I'm reacting as an untraveled Anglo-American hermit, but wow. Very nearly Lovecraftian.

And then there's the storybook rhyme of Callie Sallee.

Linda M. Tardy, and I don't care if it's because she missed her bus.

What kind of surname is Officer? I can't help but think of Catch-22. "Officer Officer, arrest this man."

Aaaand, the Boston variation: Mallad.

A Name by Any Other Rose

Nothing yesterday? Gads! Egads! e-gads.com!

Name that was unquestionably mocked on the playground:

Butzlaff.

Whereas Kevina seems more like a playground-generated nickname. Poor, girlish Kevin.

Ring ring ring ring
Ring ring ring
Bonanno phone!

A man who has certainly not heard that one before: Jack Daniel.

Sinner. Not a promising start.

The dark side of the tea party: Shirley Vader.

And hey, do you remember those Saturday Night Live skits where Chris Kattan would be Talking Really Fast Guy and would jam entire phrases into a single monolithic word? I bet if he was doing one about the undead scourge, the shambling post-living who hunger for the grey candy contained in our skulls, he might have uttered the phrase "Zambrana!"

Finally, another Geography Bonus: Beersheba Highway.

These Are the Names of Our Lives

A juvenile* start today: McHorney.

Moving right along:

Schoolmaster. I suppose it's not all that different from "Baker" or "Smith" or "Miler" or any other such vocational surname, but this one feels awfully specific. Being compelled not just to go into education, but educational administration. I suppose it could work as a pseudonym for a working dominatrix. Why not "Schoolmistress" then, though?

Clarinda:

"Oh dearest, you've just given birth to a beautiful baby girl. What shall we name her?"
"[wheeze] well, darling, [huff] I rather fancy [puff] the name 'Melinda', after [wheeze] my great aunt."
"Really? Oh. I thought perhaps we'd name her 'Clarinet', after that humble chancellor of the woodwind section."
"[wheeze]"
"Well, I suppose we can compromise."

Palanuk. This is a cut-rate Palahniuk. Similar, but, y'know, abridged. Come winter '05, check book stores for Huck Palanuk's debut novel, Fig Cub. (Soon to be a mao moto pit! {Okay, that was pretty weak.})

Repetto. Twin brother of Gepetto, born two minutes later. Repetto's mother was in no better shape than Clarinda's, at that point.

*as if, somehow, the bulk of the content here should not be considered juvenile.

I Have Here a List of Names

Goforth! I like names that are complete sentences.

Trancito! It moonlights as a Mexican bus company.

Hruby! I dunno, I just like it. BECAUSE IT IS HRADICAL.

Erick! This one goes out to my man Erik "with a k, dammit, with a k!" Berg. I like that this particular fella managed to avoid the with-a-c-or-with-a-k dilemma by just throwing both of them on there. Bravo! Quik thinking! Quic! Oh, to hell with it.

Infusino! If Trancito is a Mexican bus company, this guy is an Italian sport-booze cocktail. "Barista! Dimentichi la toro rosso e vodka! Infusino, per favore!"

On an only sort of related topic, I was pleased today by my discovery of Sebastopol, CA. Da!

It's The Namies!

[theme music: "Naming Names" by Diane Warren]

Welcome, all of you, to the innaugural celebration of a brand new, and long-needed, award ceremony: the Namies. This evening, we'll take a look back on some of the names that Josh has for whatever reason seen recently, and we'll make fun of them.

But before that, a moment of seriousness. We, the representatives of the Namies Name Naming Commission of America, recognize the long tradition of name fun-making-of as a sacred institution of this country, but for all the laughter there is a sad side to the story. Every year, over 5,000,000 names will be misspelled, mispronounced, or otherwise mangled. No one is excepted from this, be they a Jones or a Smythe or a McLeod, but we must put our hearts out especially to the Millards and the Thibaults and the Nguyens. By the end of this broadcast, another 10,000 names will have been marred by typoes and verbal flubs.

We must never, ever forget.

And now, the awards:

Name Least Likely To Be Called "pretty" Under Any Circumstances
And the winner is...Stumpf.

Name Most Likely To Be Spotted On A Gencon Nametag
You winner: Artemes.

Best Ironic Name For Fat Guy
The Acadamy has selected Skelton!

Name Most Confused With Small Black Notebooks
And it's...I don't believe it! Erskine!

And now, one final award, possibly the most important of our whole evening. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you our selection for Unbelievably Perfect Name For A Classic Rock Tribute Band...

Man, I just can't stand the excitement! C'mon, you freakin' envelope, open already!

[laughter]

Okay! The winner is...

Steely Duran!

On behalf of the whole of the Namies Academy, and of all the names named tonight, we thank you for being here with us for the first inaugural Namies! Good night, and God bless America!

Day of the Name

Sort of a Romero vector on the title. Naaaaaaamesss...

Choate. I like this, as some sort of backformation from "inchoate." I don't know what the back formation should be, though:

(1) "choate" to "inchoate" as "flammable" is to "inflammable"? So something that is choate is, like it's inchoate counterpart, newly begun or imperfectly formed, but not so aggressively? A laid-back Genesis, perhaps? "In the beginning, y'know, it was pretty dark, man. And stuff."

(2) "choate" to "inchoate" as "famous" is to "infamous"? Where would that get you, anyway? "Yeah, our revised quality assurance process is choate. Just like the last one was this time of year, but without the murders, eh?"

(3) "choate" to "inchoate" as "visible" is to "invisible"? That's right: IT'S JUST PLAIN NOT INCHOATE. Or maybe it's just a negation of a portion of inchoate's meaning? Well:

(4) "choate" to "inchoate" as "indecipherable" is to "decipherable"? Define choate as begun but not newly? Or formed but not imperfectly? Or even new, but not begun; or imperfect, but not formed; or, well, I'm going to stop there because I've already stretched a thin premise past the point to which I can competently defend it.

In summary, Choate is a totally awesome name.

Honorable mentions: Boyna, Starlon, Gipple, and, winning todays Most Depressing Name For An Administrative Spinster, Singletary.

MAX vs. Bicycle

File under Wacky Local News.

The MAX is Portland's local lightrail transit system.

A bicycle is a two-wheeled self-propelled personal transit device. See Figure A.

Figure A.

Une Addition Mineure

I've noticed that some people say "Tour d'France" such that it ends up coming out like so:

Dirty Fronds.

Why this Armstrong guy is so into horticulture is beyond me. I guess he just likes palm trees or something.

Names Digest

No names yesterday! Blast! Well, I was distracted in my obsessive analysis of the faux pas situation. I will repent and give you not one but four names today.

In no particular order:

Humma. This is, I believe the first name of John Malkovich's character in the recent Hitchhikers film. This is the second time I've ever heard it, and this time it seems to belong to an actual human being. To my ears it sounds more like a baseball taunt. "Humma humma suwiiiing batta suwwwwiiiiiiinggg..."

Asimova. This girl would just plain clean up at sci-fi conventions. (Note that I managed to use "clean up" and "sci-fi convention" in the same sentence. I'm considering a move to political speechwriting.)

Perilstein. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a B movie out there starring this guy, based on a script by someone who didn't know Shelly was in the public domain. "RUN! From the monster's approach. SHRIEK! At his hideous visage. FEAR! The perilous menace of the menacing...PERILSTEIN!"

Millward. Word up, homeboy.

Conflict Resolution

When mystery mad-at-my-poor-etiquette guy came in to do whatever he came in to do today, I chased after him on the way out.

I felt pretty strange standing in a hallway and calling, "sir?" That we didn't even know one another's name was just one more vector of the whole situation that disturbed me. (But then, had we known one another's names, this probably never would have happened in the first place.)

But I did, and when he turned and nodded at me, I asked if we could talk for a minute. We did. It went very well. I apologized for not acknowledging his kindness, and explained that I (a) am clumsy, (b) was carrying boiling hot soup, and (c) was essentially raised in a barn. He apologized for giving me crap, and acknowledged that he got awfully steamed and felt lousy about it afterward.

He seems to be sort of a traditionalist -- his children were all taught pretty thorough manners and keep up with them, and he's bothered by the apparent downward slide of that sort of thing in the youth of today. That I can get behind, though I'm definitely more concerned with just general civility than any of the specific niceties and formalities.

That seems to have been the weird fence we ended up on either side of yesterday. He was standing on the lawn of politeness, I was chilling in the greens of niceness, and bam! Ideological conflict.

We smiled. We looked each other in the eyes and acknowledged the weirdness and apologized.

We know each other's names now.

I Guess I Have Awful Manners

So I'm coming back from the lunchroom with my piping hot cup of microwaved soup and a Coke that I bought on a whim. And to get into the room I work in, I need to swipe a card to open the door. And I'm clumsy as all hell, and have learned the hard way (a few times) that I should not Just Go For it where balancing hot beverages and locked portals is concerned.

So I set my coke and soup down and pull out my swipe card. I swipe it. The door unlocks. For how long, I don't know; I decide to try and be quick about opening it and getting to the door before it relocks.

As I'm picking up my coke-and-soup tower, a man who comes in here once or twice a day to deliver/pickup mail comes OUT the door. Dandy! Door is opened for me. I return my attention to not spilling boiling water on myself and pass on through.

Two or three minutes later, he comes back in and stands at my desk. Not shocking: I sit at what is, besides my workspace, the (very low-traffic) reception desk of our little room. No one has come to it before to ask me anything, but I'm figuring, okay, this is the first time.

I say hi.

He smiles thinly, and says, "you know, there's only a couple of things that really bother me, and one of them is what just happened there. I come out that door and hold it open for you, and you don't say shit."

I blink. I say, flailing, "Oh, I'm sorry..." and he taps the counter with his hand, turns, and marches on out.

What the hell? I recognize the etiquette of saying please and thank you and acknowledging the small kindnesses of others, and I have no problem with that, and had I not been thinking "don't spill the soup don't spill the soup don't spill the soup" I might even have exchanged a nod and a smile instead of concentrating on my hands.

But a couple minutes passed between incident and callout. He left, went on his way, and while doing so got so steamed about my bad manners that he came back here specifically to tell me off. No interest in engaging me on the subject; no warning shots; just an angry little verbal smackdown and then a turn on the heel.

Amazon running one for five

Why did Amazon seize so firmly upon Hello Kitty? Does it have good profit margins for them? Are they in bed with Sanrio?

This list is a reflection of things I've purchased for others, which is another weird vector. Are the things I buy for myself or the wife so dull that Amazon doesn't even dare recommend similar products?

How Hello Kitty got on there goes like this: I love me some Fallout. Classic. You just can't go wrong with Fallout. Fallout 2? Same story. And they used to sell, at the Fred Meyer's home electronics section, a crazy origami jacob's-ladder paper-boxed two pack of Fallouts one and two for ten bucks. Helluva deal. I already HAD them, though, and so didn't buy them, and by the time I had gotten around to losing mine, Freddies stopped stocking it.

So, of course, to Amazon! I had a gift certificate to blow. I put it in my cart, but had like 25 bucks left; and if I spent another 24 or so, free shipping! I threw in the Baldur's Gate 2 pack, because, hey, those were supposed to be pretty solid, but I was still a few bucks short for free shipping. So I picked out a Hello Kitty kid's book for my niece. Bam.

The one sparkle of hope in this list, the Lynch film, must be a reaction to our purchase of Twin Peaks Season One for my mother-in-law. I gotta admit that the juxtapostion against HK makes takes some of the sting out of the otherwise distressing portrayal of a crippling Sanrio fetish.

NOTD

Napoleon.

Recent MTV Films Productions aside, who is named Napoleon? Who names their kid AFTER Napoleon? What kind of message are you trying to send? Vacations in Elba? Obsession with hands? Pointy hats?

And, y'know, god help you if the kid turns out to be on the short side.

By the time he's sixteen, he'll (a) hate you and (b) be going by "Leon" anyway, though the jerks at school will call him "Nappy" instead, because he's got crazy hair and is narcoleptic. THANKS A LOT, MOM AND DAD.

Nom du jour

Goodenough.

You have to wonder if these people were from a less hubristic branch of Alexander the Great's family tree.

Name of another day

Mardean.

It seems so very AD&D. Somewhere, in someone's basement, is a battered character sheet for a level 7 elven ranger named Mardean. I have to wonder how the real Mardean feels about that.

Name of the day

Ding.

Dirty jokes involving Hostess snacks are left as an exercise to the reader.

Employed!

It was a dandy month and a half of bathrobes and video games and checks from the government, but a combination of malaise and the desire to buy things other than necessities led me to say yes to the temp agency.

Name of the day

Crunkelton.