Hardy Monikers
Posted at 6:00 AM on February 18, 2010
by Dale Connelly
(40 Comments)
I once knew a guy who swore his given name was Rock Harder.
An unusual name can re-direct your life because people hear it and immediately develop a set of expectations. Right or wrong, folks are disappointed if you don't confirm what your name tells them about you. Do we live in a world where a guy named Rock Harder can listen to cowboy music play a concert harp if he wants to? I don't think so. Not yet.
Unusual names have been popping up in various Trial Balloon comments over the past few days. We've heard about Dr. and Mrs. Turnipseed, Mrs. Door-Knock, and a Minnesota high school set so deep in the Finnish triangle that the teenagers there don't even smirk at surnames like Aho, Ahola and Frikken. And that's rare, because teenagers smirk at everything.
And of course we've all heard some names too funny to be true, especially in the credits for public radio shows like Car Talk (creative director Drew A. Blank, criminal justice expert Lauren Order) and Prairie Home Companion (written by Sara Bellum).
John Train published a couple of books in the late '80's that were nothing more (or less) than lists of "Remarkable Names of Real People". People like Henry Ford Carr of Central City, Kentucky, and T. Fud Pucker Tucker of Bountiful, Utah.
.
What are the must unusual REAL names you've encountered?
Comments (40)
'Morning, Heartlanders
I have just one name to offer here. I went to college with a young woman named Bunny Hunter. I smiled at that but figured that, with that last name, her parents could have done worse if they'd had dirty minds and a bent sense of humor.
When I was in high school, a friend of mine, whose name was Diane Hood, had a younger brother named Robin. All Diane's friends thought it was hilarious, but since he was four years younger, I never knew him well enough to find out if HE thought it was funny. I'm guessing not. I have the same last name as a former president and the jokes and comments got tiring awfully fast and I only had four years of it, not a lifetime!
busy days lately, but i'm enjoying reading yesterday's the next morning.
knew a family with last name Crumb. a woman named Cookie married into the family and actually took the family name.
we had lots and lots of pretty weird (to us, as teenagers) German names where i grew up. and i am sad to say, we did snicker at the most inappropriate times.
happy day, All
Is this song a coincidence, Dale?
A friend's daughter named her son Optimus Prime after the Transformer. My friend calls her grandson Opie as in The Andy Griffith Show, Also, I once had a student whose name was Bobcat, though I don't remember his last name. I remember when he introduced himself to me, since he was in Kindergarten at the time, quizzing him to find out if perhaps he had made up a nickname for himself to launch his school career, but he hadn't . It was his name.
Morning, all!
Ima Hogg—famous Texas society matron of 30 years ago.
Taught Candy Kane and her sister Lana Kane and their neighbor Kris Kringle
Taught a girl whose first two names are Amanda Lynn, whose nickname thus was Banjo.
Taught a couple of students with the nickname Shitta, a common nickname in Swedish.
I used to get phone calls from Joe Demajio and the secretary kept thinking it was a joke and not take the message to call him back.
Worked for a principal name Mr. Hard and talked regularly to a principal named Mrs. Wiche, pronounced witch.
Greetings! My maiden name is Ahl -- very German in a Catholic family with 6 girls and 1 boy. Everybody thought it was really funny to comment, "Oh, here's all the Ahl girls," or something similar.
My brother and his wife have license plates for their cars as follows: AHL 41 and the other is 14 AHL -- funny guy. No unusual combinations of names that I can think of -- even within my 160 aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. My dad was 2nd of 11 kids and each of them had mostly 5-8 kids each.
I grew up in a town famous for its use of nicknames. The Mpls. paper and the NY Times both wrote stries about it. So there were people around always called raincoat (ALWAYS wore one), wheelbarrow (broke his arm trying to steal one from the railroad). Many of the Swedsih people had Swedish origin nicknames like Booksa and Moko teamed with last names like Johnson and Carlson. But the phone company would only publish legal names. So there were many names you could not look up in the phone book.
Not really unusual in its time but not heard much today; my Dad's middle name is 'Ernesteven' and my brothers first and middle name are 'Ernest Steven'.... Dad's grandmother was 'Earnestina'...
This is no lie. One time I had a student whose last name was Daniels and his first name was Jack. His parents must have known my Kentucky relatives. My maiden name was Ball and you can only imagine how much of a hay day immature adolescents had with that one. Ball, by the way was George Washington's mother's maiden name - in case you missed my post the other day about presidents and their librarians.
There was a woman in my home town named Iona Braa. I am not kidding.
There was also a family with the last name of Tusch.
Good Morning All,
My last name starts with Tj and I always had to pronounce it for teachers at the start of the year. I told them the T was silent. Of course in junior high I was teasted about the silent T that I mentioned when giving information on how to pronounce my name. One guy just decided to call me Zeke.
I know there are a few Heartlanders who might go to the Sustainable Farming Assoc. conference at St. Olaf College saturday. I will be wearing my radio Heartland goat pin and will be greeting people at the registration area between 7 and 9AM
Renee, I think I posted last week I had neighbors named Braa and Teat, the Teats since changing their name to Tate.
I used to get regularly called by my sister's name Cleo, including once shouted from the sidelines by my HS football coach. A related tale: in college football during a time out I went to the sidelines to talk to me headcoach. As I walked up to him he told me he was not my coach. I knew I had screwed up a play a little before that but I did not know I had been that bad. The coach had an identical twin, which we did not know. My son's godparents are idetical twins who live and work far apart in the Twin Cities. It is surprising how often people come up to them thinking they are the other. Since they are both very funny and love a joke, they have a hard time convincing the person.
I worked on a convention with James Dean. And in a former life when I worked in the student loan industry I came across all sorts of variations of Mary/Merry/Meri Christmas. Tijuana Hooker went to a beauty school for a career in hair dressing. And Richard Nixon's (different middle initial) paperwork came across my desk, too.
My last name, which I kept when I married, is the Dutch name for orchards. It starts out with the letters "Boom". I didn't get much teasing about it, though. The German equivalent sounds more elegant, I think.
I had a dear friend, Mary Somers Knight. (Somers was her mother's maiden name.) She had a younger brother, Wilder Somers Knight. Her youngest brother was Randy Somers Knight.
I worked, when I was MUCH younger, at a grocery store in a small town in Nebraska owned and operated by the Baer family. One of the brother owners was named Cub and his son bore the name Teddy.
I don't recall that anyone actually smirked over those names. ...well, maybe a little over Teddy.
my ex wi=fes divorce attourney was named candace barr and she got real upset when i would refer to her as candy (everytime). i guess its hard to demand respect named candy barr.
i mentioned last week i knew of a woman named ieta califlower (honduran name i don't know the correct spelling but pronounced " i eat a"
clyde great list.
sorry to miss out on the latter part of yesterdays discussion. clyde can't you just do a service for the old folks and a seperate service for the young folks? if someone screws up and misses service of choice its their fault not yours.
party pooper you are not
has mike found the singer yet?
hmmm, i got nothing for ya on this topic!!!
however, i will just mention that yesterday in class i told the kids, who were involved in some teasing, the rather longish, name-based rhyme that kids teased me with in elementary school--
sort of felt like redemption, or at least pleasure that i'd finally gotten over it :-)
I was just thinking-I know that lots of people listen to public radio without giving financial support- does that mean there are lots of people who read the Trial Balloon without commenting? It would be nice to hear from some of those shy bloggers. Its so nice to see new names when they post.
First, it's my sister's birthday today. On the name topic, her name is Karen and she is a nurse. If you're going to be cared for by a nurse, you'd want her to be Karen.
More on names: I worked with a guy whose name seemed antonymous, if you stopped to think about it: Rich Lien (pronounced 'lean').
RUBY PEARL DIAMOND
Ruby Diamond, lifelong citizen of Tallahassee, was one of thirteen members of the 1905 graduating class of the Florida State College. She later received her Master's Degree from Florida State College for Women. As one of Florida State University's most revered alumni and benefactors, Diamond generously supported her alma mater for over 65 years.
THERE IS A LARGE AUDITORIUM AT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY NAMED AFTER HER.
Gorgeous day here in Zim - good morning all!
My wonderful son in law's first name is Trail. He is the youngest of 5 children whose home is in the area in North Dakota where the Lewis and Clark Expediton spent their first winter as they traveled west. Trail's mother and father have a great interest in the expedition, and in fact had named two of thier boys after the explorers. Toward the end of her pregnancy, Marlene's good friend called with 'Trail' as a name suggestion for a boy. She had realized that if the 5 kids' names were put together, they could make this sentence: "Lewis and Clark left at Dawn on the Clay Trail." Marlene was not in favor of the name, but she asked the kids what they thought, and put it to a vote. Clark, Clay and Lewis voted 'aye'; Dawn voted 'no'. They 'ayes' had it. The baby was a boy and was given the name Trail.
Trail deals with his name very well, and says the only hassle is being named after a common noun means that people conjure up a picture of you when they first hear your name.
I appreciated the sentence with all the kids' names in it because it made it very easy to learn the names of Trail's brothers and sister.
thankls for the dylan durante connection. its a rh association. someone mentioned quite q while back that dylan presents his stuff today very much like jimmy durante did and it is abosolutly correct. this recording was before dylan turned into durante but i can't help noticing it was always kind of there.
Renee--I agree, new names on here are wonderful.
tim--re church services, many many churches now do two church services of different styles, which is the best solution out there. Part of my purpose in the adult forums was to prepare the older members for that. And a few older members of course quit going or switch because they object that their church does such services. "I Demand it MY Way." Single service churches are left with the problem. The whole issue of change remains a bugaboo for churches in many ways. Another example is switching format and scheduling of Sunday School to fit the younger members. I have lived my life in two of the places most resistant to change--schools and churches.
re--a pianist. I think we will pass on that one. Every time Dale and Mike play the graduate school spoof on "My Way," I start writing that version, which I finally put down on paper. I actually want to rewrite the end of that wonderful spoof. My brother-in-law who as a college prof did not "do it their way" used to get cited for failure to teach (because he did not lecture) at the same time as he would be voted professor of the year.
Lecture--a method of getting the informationm from the notebook of the teacher to the notebook of the student without going through the mind of either.
Jim, sorry i won't be able to attend SFA conference, but there will be plenty of folks from Lake Superior SFA there - thanks for all the work you do!
Clyde - loved your poem from yesterday - think if you approach singing as another Tom Waits it might work for you? if i think of all of the music we hear on RH, there are many many times i notice how unique a voice is, not necessarily what one would call beautiful but effective nevertheless
and i just want to say
GO SUSTAINING MEMBERSHIPS!!!! keep RH alive and well by honoring RH in your comments when you join or renew
I did work with a pathologist named Dr Coffin. Early colleagues included Ronald McDonald and OScar Mayer and no they didn't think it was funny.
In my current job I deal with the names given to newborns. People sure try to find creative spellings. I don't think that Jerimyah ot Clevanisha' will ever be able to walk into a store and buy those little bike license plates. I do hyphenate my first name so notice other folks who do the same. I don't think that K-Lib really needed a hyphen.
Have a great day!
Teri-Thanks for mentioning North Dakota names. I enjoy reading our local rodeo news. The rodeo participants have such descriptive names like Rowdy, Chance, and Bucky.
Just last week I was introduced to a Marty Berry. It was all I could do not to ask if he had a first initial.
Depression era joke: A man stands before a judge asking for a name change. "And what is your name?," asks the judge.
"Franklin Delano Stink," comes the reply.
"That's pretty bad," says his honor. "What do you want to change it to?"
"Joe Stink"
Sherilee- I suspect you and my wife share the same last name. The advantage was that when you called for a reservation, nobody asked "Can you spell that?"
Haven't heard from Zimmerman in awhile; speaking of names, Zimmerman is one of the few German named towns to survive WWI.
As a former teacher, I plead, do not invent cute or clever spellings of common names. Just think how many ways you can spell Lori without getting clever, and I think I had a student with everyone of the 36 or so reasonable spellings of that name.
I also like euphonious names--Jan Bann, Becky Reppe, Gisela Fohlmeister,
A friend of a friend of mine had picked out baby names early in life - before meeting her spouse - and always thought if she had a daughter she would name her Brandi. She gave up on the idea, though, when she married a man whose last name was Alexander. Good thing.
I am killing time today instead of being at work waiting to drive my wife up to Mpls. to visit her very ill sister at Abbot-Northwest, so nothing to do but post.
barb--nope, I can't even be Tom Waite. There is nothing about my voice that works as singing any more. In my 20's I had a voice that was just a normal off-key dull voice. But 45 years of three public speaking careers, often in places where I had to project hard for 2-6 hours a day . . . Also, and I hate to bang this drum again, but my fm also affects my vocal cords.
Dale, I used to feel sorry for you and TK sharing the pledge week load. And now you are alone, inventing 1000 ways to say the same thing. GO GET 'EM. Speaking of writers like Dale, I matched up with two more ex-students on facebook, and guess what; they are both managing editors.
One of my brothers knew a woman named Crystal Ball.
Can I touch on a Mystery Science Theater 3000 reference just for a sec? If you're not familiar, this was the locally produced program where a man and his two robot pals parody, tease, and mock movies that are generally regarded as 'non-Academy contenders.' One movie in particular was called Space Mutiny. The hero, played by 70-80's B-movie staple, Reb Brown, is (as his usual role) a muscular, blonde hunk of manhood, running around beating people up and laser blasting them. The MST3K guys started calling his character by a bunch of names that they thought typified the character. These names included:
Slab Bulkhead
Bridge Largemeat
Punt Speedchunk
Butch Deadlift
Hold Bigflank
Splint Chesthair
Flint Ironstag
Bolt Vanderhuge
Thick McRunfast
Blast Hardcheese
Buff Drinklots
Crunch Slamchest
Fist Rockbone
Stump Beefnaught
Smash Lampjaw
Punch Rockgroin
Buck Plankchest
Stump Junkman
Dirk Hardpec
Rip Steakface
Slate Slabrock
Crud Bonemeal
Brick Hardmeat
Rip Slagcheek
Punch Sideiron
Gristle McThornbody
Slate Fistcrunch
Buff Hardback
Bob Johnson (oh, wait...)
Blast Thickneck
Crunch Buttsteak
Slab Squatthrust
Lump Beefbroth
Touch Rustrod
Beef Blastbody
Big McLargehuge
Smoke Manmuscle
Beat Punchmeat
Hack Blowfist
Roll Fizzlebeef
Wow. A MST (choose your number) reference! How nice. From Guy in Hat. That's not a surprise. Loved, especially the one they did on the bad Hamlet. So are all those names on a website? Or do you know them?
Do you all know where Castle Danger is on the North Sore? First two settlers in CD were couple named Ole and Lina. Two members of that community were a husband and wife named Rangvold and Ranghild.
Oh, the bad German version of Hamlet...yeah, that was painful to watch.
Yup, all the names are listed on a wiki website. I may be a 'Mistie' but I don't have them all memorized.
The worse the movie the better the MST.
Have a good day all. Heading up to TC.
Renee - Glad you liked the North Dakota names. Trail told me that when 'personality' liscence plates came into use, North Dakotan's were among the first to use them, and that at one point the state had the highest percentage of personality plates in the U.S.
I didn't grow up in ND, but in Seattle. Our family dentist's last name was Savage. It didn't occur to me how funny that was until I was an adult!
our first grade teacher was Mrs. Kill
never even occurred to me.....
We had a first grade teacher named Miss Apple, which I thought was the nicest name for a teacher of little kids. There were people from my home town with the last name of VanNeuiwenhuisen, and one of the boys in the family formally changd his last name to Van at his first opportunity.
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