More Files for Department of Silly Names

The strange names that life and perverse parents produce can obsess one for a lifetime.

I don’t want to become obsessed, but I can’t resist adding a few more to those already offered by my readers.

Among those that can be blamed on parents is one recalled by Maury Green: “Their name was Seancey, and they named their daughter Nancy Ann. You have to say the full name to get it: Nancy Ann Seancey. I’ll bet she married young.”

Green also claims he once interviewed a Chicago man named Carbon Petroleum Dubbs, an executive in Carbide & Carbon Co.

On the more euphonious side, Duke Russell mentions a student at Immaculate Heart High School named Autumn Birdsong, and I’ll bet she takes her time getting married. Imagine changing Birdsong for Smith; or even Russell. On second thought, Autumn Russell isn’t bad.

Harry Cimring favors Wooloomooloo Cleaves, “a lady from Australia.” However, he says he is suspicious about Ming Toy Epstein and Bathsheba Finkelstein. “Both are too reminiscent of Dawn Ginsbergh, one of S.J. Perelman’s fictional characters and the name of one of his published volumes: ‘Dawn Ginsbergh’s Revenge.’ ”

Bob Underwood of Lawndale has culled some marvelous names from the internal telephone directory of his company: Among many are Anita Askew-Bawl, Barbara Bumpers, Wanda Fish, S. D. Muggleworth, John T. Parsnip, Terrence Tickle, Wendall Womble, Ting Wong, Wing Wong and Duck Yoo.

Jeff Williamson of Sherman Oaks recalls that a Polish priest name Stanislaw Musial had spoken out for the Carmelite nuns. “You got Stan Musial going for you, who is going to bet against you?”

Williamson also notes that there is a Cardinal Sin in the Phillipines. “This one wears a red hat and talks to the Pope.”

Sid Frank of Santa Barbara denies that the story about Oscar Levant calling the opera singer Gisella Wirdbeserk-Piffl (his spelling) and claiming to be an old schoolmate is apocryphal. He claims to have called that esteemed lady himself in 1944 and asked if she remembered him from the University of Minnesota. Of course she did not. And he thereupon gave the legendary tagline: “Oh. It must have been some other Gisella Wirdbeserk-Piffl.”

He adds, “How Oscar Levant got into the act I have no idea.” (Somehow such stories are always attributed to celebrities.)

Bill Noble of Palm Desert writes that he and his brother Bud have been collecting names for years. Some of their favorites: Odessa Spore, Rollo G. Plunk, Colon B. Goodykoontz, Olive Toothaker, Isadora Ding, Nice Go, Dr. Illtread W. Lecher, Marilyn Joy Mankiller and Esther Oyster.

I have a letter from Pete Sloman, son of my late friend Easy Sloman (whose name I always envied) noting that he works for a research company that screens names to be used in movies and TV, to avoid possible libel suits. Among the real names he has turned up are Geneva Shrapnel, Michael Superman, Twatie Beodath, Virtue Blaring, Delicia Bracegirdle, Elzora Flitt, Bubba Gong, Tangerine Levy, Monique Pancake, Heavenly Peterson, Tahiti Robaire, Maudlin Rose, Deleta Seupersad and Bunyan Snipes Womble.

Bess Shapiro adds another to the bizarre names people named Smith are inclined to give to their children by way of conferring some distinction on them: “We called him Treadwell, a sweetly witty, gentle man. His parents had christened him Treadwell-in-the-Way-of-the-Lord. And he tried to.”

Bill Wilson of Santa Barbara writes, ‘My favorite in Beverly Hills used to be a silver-voiced secretary named Beverly Violin. . . . She may be there still.”

Meanwhile, Rae Erickson Hanstad objects to my reference to “the deplorable practice of giving girls feminine versions of their fathers’ names.” She says, “I have always been proud to be my father’s namesake. Why should this honor be limited to sons?”

It was thoughtless of me to suggest that girls who are named for their fathers are invariably unhappy. My apologies to all the Paulas, Georgias, Edwinas, Robertas, Frederickas, Harriettes, Henriettas, Charlottes, Michelles and so forth. Lovely names all.

To end this on a nice note, Vada Robeson recalls the name of a girl her mother went to school with: Cheerful Hyacinth Apple.

Doesn’t that make you feel better?