The Name Of The Game

www.paulcoia.com

I came home from work yesterday in floods of tears and asked my wife to console me. So she hit me over the head with an Xbox.

Yes, I know that didn’t really happen but I thought that, after last week’s serious tone, I’d lighten the mood this week by starting with a joke, no matter how weak. In truth there’s been a lot of jokes and fun around these past seven days and it’s been reminding me of carefree, credit crunchless, times.

I once worked with a producer called Josephine King, which is not, in itself, worthy of comment but, as she preferred to be called Jo, making her Jo King, I’ll mention it anyway as it’s a very silly name and gives problems on the old credibility scale. I was reminded of her this week when a baby clothesware retailer released details of stupid names given to kids and I was intrigued to find that some people hate their parents because of the name they were given at birth.

A lady with the surname Snokars was relieved to get married and change her name after years of being teased. When you realise her full name was Norma Snokars and you say her name out loud while thinking of her very large assets, you understand why.

The survey also had a Justin Case, a lady named Barb Dwyer and a poor, picked on man called Stan Still. Joining them were Terry Bull, Paige Turner and Ana Sasin.

Remember, these aren’t characters from a comic or a bad children’s joke book. These people had to go through life carrying these names and leaving themselves open to mockery at all times. Job interviews must have been excruciating, business cards an embarrassment and name plaques an invitation to any graffiti artist. How these people ever get a date is way beyond my understanding.

Stan Still used to be in the RAF and he says his life was made a misery. His commanding officer used to shout “Stan Still, get a move on”, and roll about laughing. But 51 year old Rose Bush says her name has been nothing but fun and that she always gets comments that are positive. Whether she’s ever met Alastair Phid I don’t know, but a Rose Bush and an A Phid don’t normally get along famously.

Some names make it difficult for kids to consider any other career. In the States there’s a Dr Leslie Doctor, a Dr Thomas Surgeon and a dentist in San Francisco called Les Plack. Canada has a member of the forestry board called Tim Burr and in Scotland there’s a textile lady with the name Annette Curtin. And in England – you can Google them if you think I’m making this up – a young couple, known as Susan and Robert Mee, have problems. Sue Mee is a lawyer and Rob Mee is a banker.

Some titles, of course, don’t look silly in their own language but seem ridiculous elsewhere. Lotte Flack lives blissfully in Germany unaware of the lot of flack she’d get in Britain, and Mr Willy Dangles, who works for the HSBC Bank in France will probably never know the stick he gets from his UK colleagues behind his back. The Frenchman Olivier Moron gets no ridicule at home but has a miserable time from the moment he arrives at any English speaking border, and I have no idea if the American ambassador to Denmark has any embarrassing problems that could get in the way of his diplomatic meetings, but I do know his name is Dick Swett. He once ran for the Senate in America where his campaigners turned down the slogan “No one can lick Swett”. Wisely.

With some other names you have to work hard to understand why the person concerned says they get such a terrible time. A girl named Jenny Taylor says she is always being picked on for her name and I genuinely couldn’t understand why until I said her name out loud and instantly understood.

As if all this nonsense isn’t enough to cheer anyone up this week, I’ve discovered a web site called Ancestry.com which contains over eighty three million records of American citizens who have passed on to that celestial place where names mean nothing. Using a search engine on the site you can waste many hours at work finding ridiculous, but real, names and wondering about their lives. It could become a new internet phenomenon.

Being a boy, of course, I had to search the rude ones first and I found a Julius Pooh, who lived in Sussex, New Jersey, a Mae Bumm who died in 1993 and lived her life in happy ignorance of immature British schoolboy humour in Newtown Pennsylvania, and I can only hope that transport being what it was in the Nineteen Twenties, the Chicago resident named Miss Fartt didn’t get about much. Her first name, should you wish to check up for yourself, was Fannie.

On this wonderful site, my silliness also led me to great Americans like Ruperta Colon, Willie Manky, Frank Twitt and just under three hundred and twenty four thousand lives blighted by the real, and wonderful, name Donald Duk.

So, that’s how I’ve spent this week, cheering myself up by laughing at others. Not very laudable, I know, but fun nonetheless. Occasionally I have found myself pausing and sympathising, especially over a name I found that’s been attached to over four hundred and seventy three thousand Americans who went to their graves not knowing that, one day, someone would bring shame on their name. That moniker, should you wish to check it out on Ancestry.com, is Paul Coia.

Now that really IS a silly name.