The other night I was thinking about some
of the "unusual" names people have come up with for their children. Granted, many of them might be considered unique and creative…while others probably emotionally scarred
the poor kids for life.
The names that immediately popped into my head, however, were last names. Considering surnames are inherited, I suppose I really can’t blame the parents for those.
Take, for example, many years ago when I
had a nosebleed that wouldn’t stop even after I stuffed my nose with tissues, so I ended up paying an emergency visit to Concord
Hospital. The doctor who was assigned to examine me suddenly appeared through the opening in the curtain that surrounded the bed.
“Good morning,” he greeted me. “I’m Doctor
Blood.”
I couldn’t help it. Even in my
less-than-pleasant situation, I giggled. I honestly thought he was kidding.
“Seriously?” I asked when I noticed his
somber expression.
“Yes, seriously,” he said as he leaned
closer to inspect my nose.
“Your first name isn’t Peter, is it?” I
asked.
He gave me a curious look. “No, it’s
Horace.”
The reason why I asked him about Peter
was because back when I was about eleven, I’d seen a British horror movie
called Doctor Blood’s Coffin. It was
about a crazed doctor named Peter Blood who reanimated corpses by paralyzing
innocent victims and then transplanting their still-beating hearts into the decomposing
bodies. The movie gave me nightmares for years because it was my first
introduction to zombies.
So having someone named Doctor Blood
treating my nosebleed didn’t exactly calm my nerves…especially when he
announced he was going to use nasal cauterization to stop the bleeding. This
basically involved shoving a hot poker up my nostril and burning the blood
vessel to seal it off. I couldn’t decide whether to leap up and
run for my life, or to stay and search for hidden cameras…because I still wasn’t
convinced I wasn’t the victim of some elaborate hoax.
But as it turned out, Doctor Blood
stopped my nosebleed and I wasn’t transformed into one of the Walking Dead in
the process.
Another surname I definitely would not
have enjoyed being cursed with belonged to one of my husband's co-workers, whose last name was…Hoar. And he pronounced it exactly the way it looks.
I hate to admit it, but if I had been
his fiancée, as the wedding day grew closer I’d probably have said something like,
“I love you, honey, I really do, and I honestly want to marry you…but is it
okay if I keep my maiden name?”
I often wondered how his wife managed to
deal with her married name. I mean, I doubt I ever could have felt comfortable
being called Mrs. Hoar, or even worse, having someone call out to me by only my
last name in public. I’m certain all heads would have turned in my direction.
And imagine the children being referred to as the little Hoars?
Fortunately, the Hoar family took their
name in stride and even joked about it when they so often were mercilessly teased.
I really did admire them.
Surnames, as I previously said, are inherited,
so children can’t blame their parents for those. But first names are a whole different
story.
I think one of the earliest worst
offenders I can recall was the late singer/musician Frank Zappa, who named his four children
Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan, and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen (no, I
didn’t misspell Pigeen, but it does kind of sound like what you might call a French bird).
The story I’ve heard about Dweezil, however,
is there was a nurse who absolutely refused to write down that name on his birth
registration. So out of sheer frustration, Zappa finally told her to write “Ian.”
But the baby still was called Dweezil, no matter what the paperwork said.
Now that I think about it, the earliest
strange names I can recall hearing here in New England actually belonged to a Puritan
Reverend named Increase Mather and his son, Cotton Mather. Back in the 1600s, most
men had Biblical names like John, Nathaniel and Matthew, so I can imagine how Increase
and Cotton must have stood out amongst their peers.
I’ve also noticed that over the years, the
spelling of traditional names has become more creative. Like when one of my
friends named her baby boy Kryss, and another named hers Jaymz. My first
thought was, “Those kids are going to have to spend their whole lives spelling
out their names for people.”
And then there is one of my current neighbors,
Jerrame. Most people mispronounce it “Jer-aym,” when it’s actually Jeremy.
“My mother ruined my life!” he often jokingly
laments.
I must confess I also was guilty of
taking a bit of creative liberty with my dog Wynter’s name. When I adopted her during a raging blizzard one February,
her name was Rosalind. I didn’t think the 100-lb. Rottweiler looked like a
Rosalind, so considering the weather, I changed her name to Winter. But whenever
I messaged someone and mentioned her, I realized how confusing her new name could
be.
Such as on a 95-degree day in mid-July when
I’d write something like, “Winter really is stressing me out today,” and the
person wasn’t even aware I had a dog. I probably sounded as if I needed a long
vacation. So I changed the spelling to Wynter. But now I always have to spell
her name whenever I call the vet or they search for her under “Winter” and then
inform me they can’t find her file (which I can’t understand because she’d be
in the Breslin file, wouldn’t she?).
So you can imagine my utter shock when a couple of years ago a new family moved in right next door and introduced me to
their toddler, Wynter, emphasizing it was spelled with a “y.”
I blurted out, “That’s my dog’s name! And I even spell it the same way! What a coincidence!”
Let's just say they didn’t look too thrilled to discover their dainty little girl shared a name with a hairy,
drooling Rottweiler.
“We wanted her to have a unique name,” the
wife said somewhat tightly.
After that, I briefly considered
changing my Wynter’s name to “Deeojee” (say it out loud for the full effect), but
I didn’t want to further traumatize her…or the vet.
Truthfully, if I had to give an award for the most creative spelling of a name I’ve ever seen, it would have to go to the parents of a woman I saw on a newscast not long ago. The announcer pronounced her name “Erica.”
I forwarded it to my neighbor, Jerrame…just to make him feel better.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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