An AP story brings us word of some of the names researchers at the Cornwall Record Office have discovered as they pored over their archives:
“My all-time favorites are Abraham Thunderwolff and Freke Dorothy Fluck Lane,” she [Rene Jackaman] said.
Other discoveries included Boadicea Basher, Philadelphia Bunnyface, Faithful Cock, Susan Booze, Elizabeth Disco, Edward Evil, Fozzitt Bonds, Truth Bullock, Charity Chilly, Gentle Fudge, Obedience Ginger and Offspring Gurney.
There are also some great married couples (e.g., Nicholas Bone and Priscilla Skin). (Thanks, Nick!)
Addendum. Trey (in the comments) has found the complete Silly Names List!
While I’m entertaining you, I recently found my all-time favorite typo in a list of Walt Whitman quotes: “Do I contradict my elf?”
I don’t know if anyone has bothered to collect them but Jay Leno has been reading the curious and risque married names from the newspapers on Monday nights for a few years now.
Years ago I collected a number of appropriate names. At the moment I can recall a Dr. Brain who was a well known neuorsurgeon and a Dr. Fish (or was it Fisch?) who was a celebrated ichthyologist.
I went to school with a girl named Vicki Martini, her mother’s name was Olive.
I worked with a urologist and surgeon named Mangelson, he was so good, it never occurred to me until pointed out that it was perhaps not a confidence inspiring name.
John Train’s “Remarkable Names of Real People” (1981) is fun for that kind of thing. It seems to be available on Amazon for the moment.
A couple of years ago I had a post on embarrassing names, including a general named Strong Boozer and gynecologists named Harry Beaver and Seymour Hyman. Comments offered many more examples.
One I forgot when I posted two years ago:
In Virginia Beach 35 years ago there was a local company (plumbing, I think) owned by a family named Griesedick. Middle and high schoolers couldn’t keep a straight face when one of their trucks drove by. And yes, it was pronounced “greez-a-dick”.
My wife used to keep a list of notable mail order customers of the company she worked for. It’s long gone now, but I’ll never forget Mona Lisa Gooseberry.
My current favourite is a name I saw listed in my local phone diretory: Bernt Glans.
While there are many native speakers of English in India, it is clear that while they may share (most of) a language with the US and the UK, they do not share the culture. If they did, there wouldn’t be so many fellows named Anil Dikshit. Even though the stress of Anil is probably on the second syllable, that isn’t how most naive English speakers in the US would read it. There was one so-named fellow at my school when I was in college, and if you Google for the name, many of the hits are stories from folks who know or knew someone with that unfortunate (in the US, at least) name.
It took a little while, but I found what appears to be the full list on the web:
http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=13762
Years ago I worked for a dentist whose name was S. Hertz. He told me that in his graduating class from dent school at the Univ. of
Michigan were two other fellows named J. Aiken and A. Paine.
He had the class picture (the class numbered just 47) and if one bothered to read the fine print names under the photograph, one found all three smiling brand new D.D.S.’s —Aiken, Paine, and Hertz…..
The silly names list mentions an Ellen Step Forward and an even more unfortunate Fanny Forward.
One of my ex-clients here in France is named Monsieur Baise.
I’ve just remembered that I posted about this kind of thing some time ago: Here’s the link
I can’t remember if I’ve told you about the Utah Baby Namer here:
http://www.wesclark.com/ubn/
Actual names given to kids in that weird and wonderful state. My personal fave name is “VulvaMae.”
D
Some odd names I have known in the past have been Buster Labrie (I guy I knew in high school -yet very American; nothing French about him) and Tex Knutson (a tall, blond, bearded guy I knew in college). I remember one of my history profs exclaiming when he heard the name “What? A Swede in Texas?!” I also heard of someone once with the name of Luigi McNolte the first name being Italian, the last Irish.
Sometimes, odd or hybrid names occur when two or more cultures come together. For example, near present day Ankara, Turkey archeologists found the ancient grave of a man named Titianos Bougionu. His first name is a Hellenized form of the Roman name Titianus. His last name is Gaulish (Celtic) meaning something like “warrior” or “fighter.” Another strange name found in the area (Galatia)from the classical period is Ermedoumnou which is part Lycian and part Celtic with the last part of the name related to Irish domhan “world.”
I used to collect odd names when I copyedited the obituaries for a West Virginia paper. One of my favourites was Uneeda Gay Spurlock.
When I was working on the digitising of Britain’s 1901 Census, we came across a little town where there were about a dozen teenage girls called Missouri or Missoura; I have no idea why. Also, there was a sailor listed on a ship in the South Pacific whose full name was given as ‘Two Pounds Ten.’
Went to school many years ago with “Tubal Skrew”
Went to school many years ago with “Tubal Skrew”
My friend used to live near a young man named Justin Case. That’s about the only person I’ve ever known whose had a funny or odd name.
Anybody who likes Kentucky bourbon chocolates is familiar with the brand Rebecca Ruth. At one point during the Depression the company seemed doomed: “Ruth’s … loan request was turned down by every Frankfort bank. Finally, through the kindness of a hotel housekeeper with the unlikely name of Fanny Rump, she borrowed fifty dollars and started anew.” She was doubtless a fine lady.
The story is related here: http://www.familyorigins.com/users/b/o/o/Ron–Booe/FAMO1-0001/d94.htm