What's in a name?

As a teacher it is very hard coming up with names to name your own children. After one sees the behavior of certain students, they are branded! All so-in-so's will act like that name - forever. Even though with all the boys she had in her family, I remember my middle school principal telling me once "That's why none of them are named John." She had some bad experiences with Johns. Unfortunately, I didn't listen. I have a John. And he may act a like John now, but he'll turn into something wonderful one day. That's what happened to John-John. And he had a double dose.

Like you, I've met some doozies. In college, I went to school with a Twinkle Starr. No kidding. And she was born on April 1st. Do you think her parents meant that name as a joke?

In my school and in my church we had families that loved one letter of the alphabet so much, they kept having babies to wipe out the names for that letter, almost. One parent in each family did have that letter. Their names will be in parentheses. There was the Miller family (James, Sr.) and their brood: James, Johnny, Jerry, Jack, Jennifer, and Julie. Then there was the Young family (Martha Anne): Mike, Mark, Matt, and Marcie. The Williams (Donald) had Donnie, Deborah, Denise, Dana, Davin. And my friends the Rambins (Alan) - Austin, Adam, and Andrew. But my personal favorite was the Poynter family...Sandra, Randolph, Andrea, and Candance. Oh, it doesn't follow the above pattern? It's better: Sandy, Randy, Andy, and Candy.

Personally, I love how National Lampoon parodies a high school yearbook. Published in 1976, National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody is up there with my favorite reading material. The crazy guys who brought you "Animal House" , P.J. O'Rourke and Doug Kenney, were responsible for this silliness. It's brilliant. It's creative. It's politically incorrect (not unlike the stories here.)

Remember how the Seniors got all the big pictures in your yearbook and the tiny, little 9th (or maybe 8th) graders got those itty, bitty pics? Well, the yearbook parody gave them such small pictures, they only had room to put their first initial and last name beside the picture. No full names for these underlings. Such as (if you don't get them, say them aloud) :

K. Passo, V. Neck, T. Leaves, C. Senor, G. Purscreepers, O. Very, A. Train, O. Tannenbaum, X. Sitt, N. Sanity, K. Ration, M. Plode, X. Plode, D. Day, D. Billatating, D. Minus, G. String, A. Hole, A. Cappella, F. Fervessant, B. Stoveburden, etc. There are only about 100 more chuckles.

Heck, even I had to get a magnifying glass to read this small print. Funny, right?

The Juniors and Sophomores had it better. They had their full names displayed. Get ready for some more laughs:

Bertha D. Blues, Eileen Dover, Rex Karrs, Ray D. Aider, Jerry Mander, Leah Tard, Claire Voyance, Barbie Kew, Barry Dellive, Cass Tigate, Bunny Pellits, Frank N. Beans, Sharon Sharalike, Jill E. Bean...you get the picture.

Seniors? Well, let me tell you...there was: Rufus Leaking, Franklin George Furter, Maria Teresa Spermatozoa, and Woolworth Van Husen, III, to name a few.

I don't know if you can order this magazine, but if you can, I'd advise it because you can't have mine. I even keep it hidden in my house. It's such a classic AND that precious to me. I pull it out every now and then and H-O-W-L with laughter...just like you, I am sure, while you were reading these names.

Hey, the Seniors even have nicknames and quotes that describe them - Ursula Jean Wattersky, or "Wobbles" has crutches. Her favorite saying is, "I cried because I had no shoes, and then I met a man who had no feet."

Woolworth Van Husen, III's nickname is "Lunch Money" and he is known for saying, "Money is the root of all wealth."

Emily May Praeger, or "Preggers" is known to all by this quote: "Woo'd at haste, wed at leisure." And guess what else? She was voted "Cutest couple" by her Senior Class.

There's always one of these: Gilbert Bunsen Scrabbler, "Univac" says, "The square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the adjacent side." Hey, can you guess he's big on Trig with a slide rule tie clip?

Maria Teresa Spermatozoa, better known as "Quickie" recalls, "I never met a man I didn't like."

And Robert Baxter, Jr., Varsity football captain is captured with this saying, "A square peg in a square hole." Mister Perfect.

And students all start to look alike over 30 years. One day, I stopped a boy in the hall. He looked JUST LIKE a friend of mine's son that I asked him, "Is your name Bret?" He answered, "No." Then I said, "Well, it should be."

So, how can teachers come up with a name for their offspring when thousands of names run by you over the course of 30 years of teaching? See the teacher's delimna?

My piano teacher told me the story once of when she was in first grade. It was 1945. She was six. Her name was Mary Jon. The rest of the 9 girls in her class were named Melanie. (1945 - 6 years = 1939 - "Gone With the Wind" best movie of the year.)

Maybe Gwyneth Paltrow and others knew this conflict and started naming their babies Apple and other such oddities. Well, it is memorable. Unless now the general public starts following her trend. Maybe George Costanza wasn't so crazy afterall wanting to name his baby "Seven."