On names - essay

There will no blogs for this coming week as morialekafa is going on vacation. Next blog one week from today.




It occurs to me that personal names in the United States are boring. You know, names like Don, Bill, Bob, Pete, Joe, Jakob, and Mary, Ellen, Ann, Susan, Cynthia, and so on. What do you really know about someone if his name is Bob or John? Not much, of course. Names like that are not only uninformative but they also lack "color." In recent years there have been at least rudimentary attempts to improve on this situation, the most popular names do change over the years, but basically the changes are minimal and very slow. African Americans have been much more creative than others when it comes to naming their children, so now we find people called Keyshawn, Donta, Ki-Jana, Aundray, Tiki, Santana, Dewayne, Terrelle, and Ladonna, Laila, Reginae, Jacida and Dorena.
However laudable these innovations, like most names in the United States, they do not tell you much of anything about the person so named, except that it's a good bet that he or she is quite likely an African American. It's the same with names world wide. Names like Bodo, Ratbald, Dietrich and Adolf, however strange to our ears here in the U.S., suggest only that the person might be German. Similarly if you know of a Boris, Radovic, Rakovski, Raskolnikov, Dmitri, or Zametov, you would probably surmise they were Russian or at least Slavic. I doubt that Raskolnikov or Dmitri are any more colorful in their cultural context than are Bob and Jim in ours.
American Indians had the right idea about names. They are not only more descriptive but far more colorful. Thus there are names like Sitting Bull, Rain in the Face, Standing Elk, White Buffalo, Bear's Belly, Snow Child, Dew Moving, Many Goats, Good Bear, Crow's Heart, Three White Cows, Ben Long Ear, and so on.
So enamored am I of the American Indian model that I have found myself, almost obsessivelly, bestowing Indian-like names on those I know and, indeed, even on those I don't know. It began with my teenage son who, for reasons we cannot fathom, insists on coming to breakfast in his underwear (a habit, however repugnant, we have found virtually impossible to overcome). He is now known to me as Forgets His Pants. One of my fishing buddies has become Rocks The Boat. A golfing partner is aptly described as Hits It Far, whereas another is Drives It Crooked, and still another is Misses His Putts. Then there is my friend Belches A Lot and his wife Overcooks It. On my son's basketball team there are characters like Shoots a Lot, Can't Pass, Feet Too Big, and Kicks The Ball, to say nothing of Jumps Too Late.
An old friend frequently calls long distance to report his troubles, which are many. Although I love him I can't help thinking of him as Whines At Night. Around town there are people I identify only as Eats Pig, Talks Too Loud, Stands In Place, Slaughters Sheep, Drinks Beer, Big Bull, Beautiful But Dumb, Smokes A Lot, Peach Blossom, and Carries Her Dog. There was an old man I named Walks Crooked but, alas, he recently died. While you of course don't know these people you know more about them than you would if I used their given names - like Bob, Sally, Pete, Mary, Joe, etc. - and certainly they are more colorfully named.
You understand, of course, that for the most part these names are terms of reference, not of address. I obviously would not address someone as Eats Pig or Belches A Lot unless I was prepared to defend myself. Peach Blossom, maybe. In any case, I submit this is a far better method of naming than the one we typically apply. And there is no reason these names have to be pejorative. Why could we not have people like Angel Face, Light Feather, Walking Deer, Strong Ox, Gentle Lamb, Smart Fox, Wins A Lot, Speaks Her Mind, Works Too Hard, Beautiful Butterfly, Two Birds, Sings A Lot, names like that. I don't know about you but I would far rather be surrounded by people with colorful names like these than by all the Tom, Dick and Harry's of the world. It's not that I don't like Tom, Dick and Harry. I prefer to think of them as Tiny Titmouse, Dizzy Duck, and Heavy Horse.
I have discussed this obsession with my wife, whom I have re-christened Shouting Bear. Entering into the spirit of things she now refers to me simply as Lost His Marbles.