Adopt a silly name now

It’s a quick and easy way to get instant memorability

I WAS EXPECTING people to express sympathy for young people whose parents had cursed them with awful names, like Don Key or Ben Dover. But no. A column in this space listing the victims of thoughtless parents instead triggered letters about people who deliberately gave themselves silly names, such as Phroedo Q McDuck, a Canadian.

Clearly, a ridiculous moniker is seen as a good thing to have these days.

[Thinks: must change my name from Mr Jam to something silly, like… Wait.]
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The UK is the world capital of daft names. It is cheap and easy to change your name legally there (you can do it online). And Monty Python-type absurd humor is part of the British personality.

So Gary Brett became “Hong Kong Phooey”.

Steven Lane is now “Jellyfish McSavaloy”.

Daniel Westfallen became “Happy Adjustable Spanners”.

And Martin Smith is today “Martin Felix Oddsocks McWeirdo El-Tooty Fruity Farto Hello Hippopotamus Bum”.
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Possibly the longest legal name in the world now belongs to a 19-year-old who recently changed his name from George Garratt to “Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine The Hulk And The Flash Combined”.
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But length ain’t everything. Mitch Prince, a 25-year-old British boxer, changed his name to “Prince of Passion”, because he thinks women will hear it and fall into his arms. Er, good luck, fella. You don’t know a lot about women, do you?
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Adam Osen, aged 50, legally changed his name to “None of the Above”. Yikes! In the interests of making a minor joke, this poor man has condemned himself to spending the rest of his life seeing every form he ever fills in being returned by companies who assume he is a pest or just stupid.
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Americans also like wacky names.

A guy in Missouri recently changed his name to They. Andrew Wilson said many common phrases use the word “they” without identifying anyone, so, “Somebody had to take responsibility."

For example, people are always saying things like: “You know what they say…”

Who is the “they”? So he decided to be that entity.

But his name is grammatically awkward. His friends phone and ask: “Is They there?'" which just confuses everyone.
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A guy called Steve Kreuscher in Chicago is a serial name changer. He became “In God We Trust” in 2008, then “One Nation Under God” last year. Next year, he is going to try something a bit different, and change his name to 777”.
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Asians adopt catchy names, too. There used to be a concierge at the Hyatt in Taipei called Handsome Tung. (He was not just a pretty face, boom-boom.)

And Hong Kong is full of people with names like Marmalade Tin and Pubic Ha. In Hong Kong, the authorities allow local residents the adoption of one English word as a name without cost.

But if you find you’ve picked one which is too silly, you’re not allowed to change it without a full legal process.
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In China and Japan, names can only come from a limited list. In Muslim countries such as Bangladesh, converts to Islam can change their names (which is how Malcolm Little became Malcolm X.)
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Why do people adopt ridiculous names? Wyng Chung, a newspaperman, told me that he and a colleague once tracked down Phroedo Q McDuck to ask why he wanted to change his name.

“His explanation was simply that he was sick and tired of being plain old John Smith,” Wyng recalled.
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Meanwhile, the guy with the name above which is a list of superheroes is called “Captain Fantastic” for short.

And what about “One Nation Under God”, formerly known as “In God We Trust”?

He said: "My boss calls me ‘In God’. Other people still call me Steve.”
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The passport of Mr Vagina of Russia.
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A Singapore taxi driver

Comments

[Nury]

I had an interesting email just now from a gentleman who said that it was important to choose a name for yourself.

"Does your name decide who you are or do you decide what your name is?" he wrote. "It makes a big difference."

I'd be interested to hear from people a) have you changed your name? b) have you given yourself a nick name or new name? c) do you feel different, say, more empowered by your acquired name? d) why did you change your name? etc

[Dancer Arroyo]

No name changes yet but I'm still waiting to acquire my new Japanese names. In Japanese traditional arts like dance or tea, if you get the name of the school or the founding family, that means you're getting their teacher's license - so not just empowered, you actually do get some power.

[Ellie]

why do you call yourself Dancer? Is it your real name? Do you feel different when you are called Dancer instead of your real name, Annie, or Joe or whatever it is?

Why are you called mr Jam, Mr Jam?

[Bill]

I think that "Mr Vagina" has another problem. "His" first name is Natalia.

[Dancer Arroyo]

Call me paranoid but I'm never really comfortable using my real name on internet sites unless I really have to.

[Paul]

I think that I will eventually change my name to SPAM, since I like the old adage that, 'you are what you eat.'

Of course if I were to expand this to include my middle and last name it would end up something like SPAM Salmon Pizza which doesn't sound all that great as a name (or a combo).

I think the best name change was by the artist formerly known as Prince, who simply became a non phonetic symbol for a while.

And of course to computers we are all binary numbers, thus to any future AI partners I may have my name will be

01010000 01100001 01110101 01101100 00100000 01000110 01101111 01111000

;-)

[grandpa aka Faye Libad aka fardel]

I am not going to change my name ;
period
Someone did it for me and I like it
period

[Jason]

I have created a fake pseudonym for myself as a gag after watching the "Lorenzo von Matterhorn" episode on How I met your mother...but to mention it here would give it away!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenzo_von_Matterhorn

[Ram]

Well... I never had a change of name... atleast not with any personal interest... I always thought my name "Sriram", which is quite a common name in India, is a very easy one... But, once I came out of my country, I understood that I was wrong...Most people here in Taiwan find it too difficult to pronounce...

Here, in Taiwan, they gave me a Chinese name, and that's my official name here... 史利南... Well, its given based on how my name sounds, and "Sriram" finally became "Shi(3) Li(4) Nan(2)" in Chinese...Well, I like my Chinese name too...

[Christy]

I have met quite a few "So-young"s in Seoul, and was rather shocked the first time I heard someone say, "Hello, I am So Young, pleased to meet you".

:P

[Chamin]

I like Batman Bin Superman :o)

http://www.dailycognition.com/index.php/2009/11/09/innocent-passenger-gets-arrested-at-airport-for-his-name.html

[Chamin]

I also had a Vietnamese friend whose name was Bich. She had another given name, and mostly used that one, though. And she was a very nice person :o)

[Kim, for the time being]

Very tempted to change my name. There was once a whole group of people who thought my name was Hilary for a year or so. I found it restful being Hilary, and liberating. She didn't have Kim's baggage. And I knew a woman who dumped her name and used both her grandmother's first names instead. She definitely felt it made a difference to her life. Once heard of a woman who changed her name, job, flat and friends every couple of years. Unfortunately never met her to ask her about it all - and can't get in touch with her as I haven't a clue what her name is now!

[Mike]

I remember in college there was a formula to figure out what your stripper name should be.

First name is the name of your first pet. Last name is the name of the street you grew up on as a child.

[Nury]

Hi Mike, I remember hearing that that one too, but it's a good example of the fact that 99 per cent of cultural memes come from the west and only work there.

In the west, it causes people to end up with names such as Goldy Ruberg.

But it doesn't work in Asia, where people's animals are called "the family pig" and roads have names like "Dr. R. S. Jayawadena-Gunesekera Esq Avenue"!

Just ain't sexy.

[Ram]

@Nury,

When you mention the name Jayawardana, I remember the cricket match between India and Srilanka. I just noticed that most players have 3 to 5 characters as Initials. I remember there were two Jayawardane in that match, one "DPMD Jayawardane" and other "HAPW Jayawardane".And there is "UWMBCA Welegedara" whose initials alone are equal to the length of my name.

So, is there a naming convention? We do have long names which includes our family name but this seems to be a little too long.

[Angela]

Following Mike's tip, My stripper name will be Bruno Mohammad Salleh. Would I have been more successful in the club? 

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Once, while ordering coffee to go, the place was busy so the guy behind the counter asked for my name and said he will call me when my order is ready. 

Ok, I said, and wrote down my name, "Nicole". Then I sat down and browsed magazines while waiting. After about 5 minutes my order is still not ready. I browsed some more, ten minutes, still nothing. Finally after 15 minutes, fed up with bad service, I marched to the counter and yelled to him that I've been waiting 15 minutes for my moccha frappe and blueberry muffins. 

He turned around and came back with my order, my iced coffe has become slushy and muffin cold, "sorry miss nicole, we've been calling you but you didn't come to the counter" poor guy aologized profusely. 

I TOTALLY forgot that I was nicole!!!

[Kim, for the time being]

Tiptoes Tennyson sounds more like a boxer than a stripper, wouldn't you say?

[Mike]

@Nury Altough I can't say I am aware of cultural memes because I don't know what the word meme means. I do know that the name doesn't have to sound sexy to me the English speaker to sound sexy to the native speaker. Jayawadena-Gunesekera Esq Avenue means nothing to me but if in Hindi it means Road of large bumps it might work well.

And I would hope that Kim Yoo Suk's Korean parents were not thinking about how it sounds in English when they named their son.

[Lift Lurker]

Does your name decide who you are or do you decide what your name is?

This is endless question without answer unless we use controlled experiment.

Identical twins give us means to experiment.
We can name those twins differently and see what happens to their life 10,20,50 years in future.

You have identical twin sons. name one: Michael and the other Gloria.
Name one Archangel, name the other Lucifer.

You have identical twin daughters, name one: Catherine, name the other Bubblebath. See which one rise to CEO level.

The woman who gave birth to octuplets, just open up so many opportunities to study.

[Mike]

@Lift Lurker there is a case study from Freekonomics 2 brothers one name winner one named loser.

[U-gee]

My dad decide to named me with only 2 alphabet. Since we didnt adapt a surname (not in the culture here) everywhere I go people will ask why I had such name.

I remember got into accident when I was 6. I woke up in hospital but instead of attend to my needs the nurses kept coming and go just to see my name and ask me about it. poor little me.

Tired, I added another name to stop poeple from asking. Wrong choice. now, they thought the 2 alphabet is an acronym for titles or honorifics.

[HKSARblog]

@Lift Lurker: Does your name decide who you are or do you decide what your name is?

The great thing about Hong Kong is that most novel names here have been carefully considered and chosen by adults themselves for themselves. Therefore, Hongkongers can help you answer your latter question.

I have often wondered why Chinese, especially Hongkongers, adopt novel names. I have blogged about this somewhat, and believe this is a potentially interesting research project. One theory I advance is that a poor understanding (or ignorance) of English is one reason why Hong Kong Chinese decide to call themselves Rimsky, Hymen and Zombi (to name the first three HKSAR Novel Names of the Day).

[Kingofhearts 4711]

Two words: QUATTRO VAGINA. (Thankfully nobody's used that in real life. XD)