I. Doctor the Optometrist . . . : People With Aptonyms Have a Special Calling

Cardinal Sin has been the archbishop of Manila for 12 years.

Patience Scales has been a piano teacher in San Francisco for 30 years.

Ivan Doctor of Ferndale, Mich., is an optometrist. He said he’s been an I. Doctor all his life.

These people’s names elicit double takes and disbelief. But they are real and, curiously, common enough to have a name of their own. According to the American Name Society, they’re called aptonyms; that is, surnames which--to the amusement of their owners and amazement of others--have turned out to be incredibly apt.

A brief search for local aptonyms produced Tommy Trotter, the new director of racing at Hollywood Park; Carolyn and Frank Vineyard, operators of the Southern California marketing office for Chateau St. Jean and Jordan wines; and Richard Moneymaker, a bankruptcy trustee with the federal court in Los Angeles.

Slaughter the Coroner

Not to mention Richard Slaughter, supervising deputy coroner in Orange County; Sgt. Mike Vice, a former narcotics investigator with the Fullerton Police Department; Judge James Judge in Orange County Superior Court; and Meredith Jury, a Riverside trial lawyer.

Jury, who acquired her surname through marriage, said she might have changed it when she divorced. Instead, she asked her husband if she could keep his name. “It was too good to give up.”

Jury said she never tires of hearing the joke, “Every trial is a trial by Jury.”

Jack Swallows has been hearing puns about his name for 16 years, ever since he and his wife, Ann, moved to San Juan Capistrano. A private pilot, Swallows said: “I do fly away from time to time. But I always come back.”

Swallows, who said many people call him Sparrow by mistake, now knows to expect calls from radio announcers every March and October (when the swallows supposedly arrive and leave Mission San Juan Capistrano). They usually ask whether his bags are packed and if he’s leaving town that day, he said.

‘Catch 22’ Character

The phenomenon also has been noted in fiction. Major Major, a character in Joseph Heller’s novel “Catch 22,” was named by his father, who “had waited 14 years for just such an opportunity.” In the military, the character is promoted through the ranks--thus becoming Maj. Major Major.

No one knows how many aptonyms there are. In any case, there are more than anyone would suspect--particularly among doctors, said Leonard Ashley, vice president of the American Name Society and professor of English at Brooklyn College in the City University of New York. At last count there were at least 13 doctors named Doctor in the United States, including a Westport, Conn., couple named Dr. Daniel and Dr. Judith Doctor, according to John Train, author of “Remarkable Names of Real People,” “Even More Remarkable Names” and “Most Remarkable Names.” Train, a New York writer who has collected unusual names since 1949, said he has verified five doctors named Bonebreak, one Bonecutter, 18 Butchers and 184 Paines or Paynes. The pain doctors are crowned by Dr. Royal Payne, a general practitioner in Hollywood. On the other end of the spectrum is Dr. Floyd Miracle, a family doctor in Santa Ana.

Filler the Dentist

Aptonyms abound among dentists with real names such as Chew, Root, Gargle and Filler. William Toothaker, a Pomona dentist, said he went to dental school at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., with Blayne A. Gumm, a retired Westminster dentist, and Luther Paine.

Toothaker said he would not be surprised if his name played a subliminal role in his choice of work. From grade school on, he said, people told him, “Gee, you ought to be a dentist.” Another Toothaker teaches in the department of orthodontics at the University of Indiana, he said. Toothaker is an English name, which his family has traced as far back as Roger Toothaker, who immigrated from England in the 1600s. Beyond that, Toothaker figures the name came from someone in feudal times who had bad teeth.

In fact, names that today coincidentally befit a person’s hometown or occupation have traveled full circle since 12th-Century England and France, when names were deliberately descriptive. For four or five centuries before that, most people had been baptized with a single Christian saint’s name such as John or Mary, Ashley said. Surnames were introduced to distinguish one John from another, he said. “People could be named for their occupation, John the Baker, or for their look, John Russell (red hair), or where they lived, John Atwater.”

These surnames were passed on to children. After a few generations, they no longer fit and someone named John Tall could actually be a short person. In the Victorian era, names that originally were obscenely or insultingly fitting were dropped, Ashley said.

Now, Ashley said, no one notices such names as Taylor, Judge, Friendly or Strange unless they actually fit. Or unless they are aptly inappropriate, such as Purvis Short, a 6-foot, 7-inch forward for the Golden State Warriors, or William Lawless, president of Western State University College of Law in Fullerton.

Some may wonder whether a name is a self-fulfilling prophecy, subconsciously propelling a person toward a certain occupation, as may have happened to Dr. Toothaker.

Tiger the Anthropologist

Hank Davis, a psychologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, has observed an unusually high number of people who study animals have animal names themselves. “The Imperial Animal,” for instance, was written by anthropology professors Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox. “The Complete Book of Dogs” was written by A. J. and H. A. Barker.

In two articles in the now-defunct Worm Runners Digest magazine, Davis revealed that a researcher named Finch had studied chimpanzees, Bird studied chicks, Wolf studied bees, and Wigglesworth had written a paper on the life of insects. The articles brought him mail from name fans with “hundreds” more animal aptonyms, he said. “There was a Springer who works with frogs. . . . The former head of the Ontario Dairy Assn. was named Cheeseman.”

In addition, Maynard Hogberg has been a pig expert at Michigan State University for 10 years. Recently, David F. Oyster wrote and produced a National Geographic television special about crabs.

Perhaps no one ever will know exactly why.

Or why Jeff Float became a swimmer for the 1984 U.S. Olympic team while Bart Crashley become a professional hockey player, and James Steels, a baseball player, stole 35 bases in 1984.

Or why Harry Press edits the Stanford Observer and Larry Press, who is not related, writes for the Bakersfield Californian, while William Headline heads the Washington bureau of Cable News Network and Larry Speakes is spokesman for President Reagan. Or what compelled Ray Roach to become office manager of the Ballantyne Pest Control Co. in Chicago.

Parents’ ‘Ego Trips’

What could it all mean?

“I have no idea,” said Herbert Harari, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University who studied weird names for 10 years before he gave up. One reason he left the research was that “it was getting more and more bizarre.” He was discouraged, he said, by parents on “ego trips” who were giving their children names like Quick Silver or Fourth of July.

Lake Trout, a Los Angeles attorney (whose brother, Brook, works in Westlake), said his name caused him to become an extrovert and therefore a lawyer. “Say I had fish lips or something, it would have been a stigma,” he said. But as it turned out, he said, “My name is a tremendous asset for a person in business for himself. My name is worth a million in advertising.”

Many people express sympathy over his name, but Trout said it works to his advantage not only in business but also at restaurants where he has forgotten to make reservations. “I say do you have a reservation for Lake Trout, party of two? Well, I called in, and they probably thought it was a joke.”

Eyeing the obvious benefits, others have legally changed their names to aptonyms. Last year, Amy Goldberg, an art student at Otis Parsons in Los Angeles, changed her name to Amy Color. “I figured if I’m not always an artist, I’ll always be colorful,” she explained.

After she changed her name, she said her paintings began to sell. “I think more people would come to an exhibit by Amy Color than Amy Goldberg,” she said.

Once in a while, an aptonym will enter the language in reverse, said the Name Society’s Ashley, referring to the legendary Thomas Crapper who is said to have invented the flush toilet.

Caen’s ‘Namephreaks’

Aptonyms are enthusiastically reported by every beginning newspaper columnist in the country, according to Herb Caen, columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle. In the past 20 years, Caen himself has been responsible for publishing “thousands, maybe millions” of aptonyms, which he has dubbed “namephreaks.” His collection, however, has been lost to history since he has no filing system or index to the names.

“The one (name) we get the most of is Shirley Nice, who teaches a class at UC Extension on how to treat people with tact and skill,” Caen said.

The names “never stop coming in” from readers, he said. “I write full columns saying, ‘Please, no more Shirley Nice.’ But there’s always a new batch of readers, and they always get excited about finding one (an aptonym).”

Caen said phony aptonyms are easy to spot. “It’s just a feeling that it’s too good to be true.”

After 20 years, Caen said he is “bored” by ordinary aptonyms such as a carpenter named Joe Hammer. But he said he’ll probably continue collecting and printing them. “If a great one comes in, it’s hard to resist.

“I’m waiting for the ultimate namephreak.”