What’s In A Name? Occasionally Too Much.
There has been a weird news item making the rounds lately about kids being given bizarre names by idiot parents in New Zealand. Example: A 9-year-old girl who was named Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. Fortunately, a judge stepped up and made the poor kid a ward of the court, then gave her a new, legal name. What that new name is we do not know, in deference to the youngster’s privacy.
I hasten to add that kiwis certainly do not have a monopoly on adults with no brains who insist on procreating. I wrote recently about a mother who got off an Amtrak train in Montana somehow forgetting that her two children were still on board. Fortunately, the train attendant did remember.
Anyway, the unusual-name phenomenon is not something new. Way back in my youth, I knew a young man whose legal name was Twig Branch.
And just the other day, while looking for a new truck here on Maui, I noted the name of the car dealership’s sales manager: Ivan Ho.
Years ago, I knew a professional baseball player named Dave Hirtz. When his wife became pregnant, I asked him what they were going to name their son.
“Anything but Dick or Peter,” he said.
Good call.
I do remember Gale Storm, although I presume it was a stage name. There was also a baseball player named Dusrt Rhodes who payed for the New York Giants in the 50s.
You did know there was a singer once named Gale Storm didn’t you?
A record promoter by the name of Morty Wax got a radio disc jockey by the name of Dusty Rhodes to play her records.
Rhodes was eventually taken off the air when two of his female listeners,
Iva Tanbottom and Trixie Delight, sued him for harrassment.
Rhodes was replaced on the air by Dex Card.