He’s Getting a Handle on Odd Names

The names parents give their offspring is a bottomless source of entertainment.

One reader has reviled me for what he calls cruelty in making fun of people’s names. On the contrary, I find that most people with unusual, inventive or even silly names don’t mind them. And of course they always have the legal right to change them.

Debra Delores Trepagnier writes that she concedes that right to her daughter, whom she named Khaleilah (Ka-lee-la) Trepagnier. Mrs. Trepagnier explains that she considered her own name, Debra, to be “the most unoriginal name I have ever heard.

“I thought I was doing her a favor. . . . Wouldn’t you just know it--she would have much preferred to be a Valerie or a Stephanie. I assured her she can legally change it at 18. I think she will like it by then. Don’t you?”

Ka-lee-la? I like it already.

I am gratified that several readers have written to confirm that some of the oddly named people I have mentioned indeed exist. Harry Cimring questioned the authenticity of Bathsheba Finkelstein, saying it was too reminiscent of Dawn Ginsbergh, one of S. J. Perelman’s fictional characters.

Judith Haun of Pacific Palisades writes that when she was 10 years old the Finkelsteins lived across the street from her best friend, Sheva Honigman. Moss Henken of Bakersfield says “Bathsheba is the name her proud parents gave her.” He says Bathsheba is a Ph.D. “She teaches at an Eastern college where her husband is president.”

Marian S. Spencer of Santa Monica writes that the Colin B. Goodykoontz mentioned by Bill Noble of Palm Desert was her uncle--Colin Brummit Goodykoontz, and she documents it with a page from her family’s history.

The name Carbon Petroleum Dubbs, reported by Maury Green, is abundantly verified. Maddie De Mott of Montecito says Dubbs came from Chicago in the 1930s and built a home near the Santa Barbara Biltmore. His name, she says, was derived from the industry that made his family rich. Warren Sherlock, a Loyola Marymount University professor, says that Dubbs’ estate gave his beach home to the university. Harry Monahan sends an article from a 1975 SEA magazine describing Dubbs’ adventures in his 60-foot yacht Bowditch, which he sailed from Scammon’s Lagoon to the Alaskan ice fields.

Leon Levitan vouches for Wooloomooloo Cleaves, whom Henry Cimring described as “a lady from Australia.” Levitan says, “I sat next to her in one of my classes at Los Angeles Junior College (now City College).”

I am pleased to report that at least two readers have authenticated the existence of Cheerful Hyacinth Apple, recalled by Vada Robeson as a girl her mother went to school with. Ida M. Hukill of Pico Rivera. “When we were kids,” she writes, “Cheerful and I lived a block apart in Riverside. That was in the early 1900s.” (Mrs. Hukill will be 93 in September.)

Dr. John C. McMillan of Pomona writes: “My mother and father went to school with Cheerful Hyacinth Apple. My mother never forgot the name.”

Beverly Violin, mentioned by Bill Wilson of Santa Barbara, writes that she indeed exists. “Personally, I really can’t take full credit for this most interesting, unusual and musical name. For I received it as a gift from my husband, Efrem, nearly 37 years ago.”

Just to keep the pot boiling, Douglas Mueller of Santa Barbara recalls an Ohio state welfare director named Xenophon G. Hassenpflug; Sue S. Loup recalls the daughter of an Italian bartender named Virgin Mary; a schoolteacher named Fairly Dull, and a schoolteacher in Baton Rouge, La., named Prince O. Wales.

John T. Pigott recalls a partner in his former law firm named Cantwell Faulkner Muckenfuss III. He encloses an eight-page legal-size list of remarkable names compiled by a friend and his wife over several decades. Alas, I have room for only a few: Intha Gotch, Rosetta Stone, C. Sharp Minor, Ecstasy Goldfarb, Candy Barr (remember her?); and Tootsie Utz.

David Kolpacoff of El Cajon also offers a long list, from which I have culled Dodie Bump, Comfort Igabon, Tina Pancake, Holly Lightfoot, Lorelei Loonie and Neil Gesundheit.

A. F. Gonzales Jr. of San Diego says his all-time favorite is the name of a hotel public relations man in Miami: Bermuda Schwartz.

Kenneth W. Whitaker nominates Jesse Basley Bentley Worth Pocahantas Gibson. “The Pocahantas alludes to a slight Indian ancestry.”

Just call me Jack.