Sunday, September 19, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Allen
William Shawn married Cecille Lyon. They had three children: Wallace (Wally), Allen, and Mary. Starting in 1950, and until his death in 1992, William Shawn had an affair with Lillian Ross.
I recite these well-rehearsed facts because the outlier here is Mary—not because she is autistic and lives in an institution, though that is true, but because she is the only one in this mini-narrative without a double-l in her name.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Rico
In D.H. Lawrence's St. Mawr, St. Mawr is a horse ("The man repeated [his name], with a slight Welsh twist"), Lou Witt is Louise (from Louisiana)—and there's also, in this novella, a Lewis—is Lady Carrington, and her husband Rico is Sir Henry. Everyone has names, and many of them, and they are all of those names at once, but only one at a time. It is wordplay, nameplay. Thus:
"Isn't Fred flirting perfectly outrageously with Lady Carrington!--She looks so sweet!" cried Flora, over her coffee-cup. "Don't you mind, Harry!"
They called Rico 'Harry'! His boy-name.
"Only a very little," said Harry. "L'uomo è cacciatore."
"Oh, now, what does that mean?" cried Flora, who always thrilled to Rico's bits of affectation.
"It means," said Mrs. Witt, leaning forward and speaking in her most suave voice, "that man is a hunter."
Even Flora shrank under the smooth acid of the irony. "Oh, well now!" she cried. "If he is, then what is woman?"
"The hunted," said Mrs. Witt, in a still smoother acid. "At least," said Rico, "she is always game!"
"Ah, is she though!" came Fred's manly, well-bred tones. "I'm not so sure."
Mrs. Witt looked from one man to the other, as if she were dropping them down the bottomless pit.
D.J.
I'm hardly the first person to think D.J. Conner or Tanner would make for an excellent disc jockey name. D.J. Conner was David Jacob and Tanner was Donna Jo—and D.J. Fontana Dominic Joseph and Shockley Donald Eugene and Caruso Daniel John—but A.J. Soprano was Anthony, Jr.; from this should I extrapolate that most deejays are first name-middle name derivations and most ehjays juniors? No, but A.J. Burnett is Allan James and A.J. Cook is Arthur James or Andrea Joy. And that Soprano kid was actually Anthony John, it turns out. So forget it!
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Oxide
The name of one of the Pang brothers, co-directors of films like The Eye. The other brother: Danny. I cannot come up with an analogous sibling set.
Noël
I only just realized that Noël Carroll—he of, for instance, Mystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory—must've gotten a lot of "What Child Is This" growing up. I mean, his name is Christmas Carol. Or even just Carol Carol. Noël, Noël, Noël, Noël...
Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned
See James Davidson, "Flat-Nose, Stocky and Beautugly." The 17th century Nevaeh? Or maybe closer to the Wizard of Oz's full name: Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs. O.Z.P.I.N.H.E.A.D., meet U-J-C-H-D-F-T-T-H-B-D. Uj for short?
Cameron
This week's New Yorker profile of Tavi—not Tavie—Gevinson:
Steve Gevinson, Tavi's father, a tall, gawky man of about sixty, came downstairs, wearing pleated shorts and a polo shirt. (Everyone in the family wears glasses.) He shook hands with one of the Barbie cameramen, who introduced himself as Cameron.
"That's a good name for a cameraman!" Steve said.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Roland
Gosh, one of my great fears is being in seminar and referring to some essay by Ronald Barthes.
Reuel
The actor Kevin McCarthy just died. Did you know that he was the brother of Mary McCarthy? I certainly did not. Intrigued by this new trivial bit, I did some reading up on his sister. She had a son named Reuel. Did you know that Reuel is Hebrew, meaning "friend of God"? I certainly did not. I had never heard of this name before tonight. It is one of the R's in J.R.R. Tolkien. Anyway, what I get from this is that you could have a son named Reuel and a son named Raoul—two names that look similar but are of wholly distinct origins. And a third, Royal.
Fairfield
I originally intended for this post to be about Jane, a name I find immediately evocative—not of plainness, but of "Jane Awake," i.e., of Frank O'Hara and Jane Freilicher. Instead, I turn to another New York School painter, Fairfield Porter, who sounds like a prep school.
Willibald
As Liam is derived from William, might Libald emerge out of Willibald? And then, if you struggled with your liquid consonants, thus he becomes Ribald.
Gwynplaine
Friday, September 10, 2010
Dudu
From Haaretz:
Sabbar Kashur wanted to be a person, a person like everybody else. But as luck would have it, he was born Palestinian. It happens. His chances of being accepted as a human being in Israel are nil. Married and a father of two, he wanted to work in Jerusalem, his city, and maybe also have an affair or a quickie on the side. That happens too.
He knew that he had no chance with the Jews, so he adopted another name for himself, Dudu. He didn't have curly hair, but he went by Dudu just the same. That's how everyone knew him. That's how you know a few other Arabs too: the car-wash guy you call Rafi, the stairwell cleaner who goes by Yossi, the supermarket deliveryman you know as Moshe.
What's wrong? Is it only fearsome Shin Bet interrogators like "Capt. George" and "Abu Faraj" who are allowed to adopt names from other peoples? Are only Israelis who emigrate allowed to invent new identities? Only the Yossi from Hadera who became Joe in Miami, the Avraham from Bat Yam who became Abe in Los Angeles? ...
Selvagee
White Jacket, also Melville:
One of these two quarter-deck lords went among the sailors by a name of their own devising—Selvagee. Of course, it was intended to be characteristic; and even so it was.
In frigates, and all large ships of war, when getting under weigh, a large rope, called a messenger used to carry the strain of the cable to the capstan; so that the anchor may be weighed, without the muddy, ponderous cable, itself going round the capstan. As the cable enters the hawse-hole, therefore, something must be constantly used, to keep this travelling chain attached to this travelling messenger; something that may be rapidly wound round both, so as to bind them together. The article used is called a selvagee. And what could be better adapted to the purpose? It is a slender, tapering, unstranded piece of rope prepared with much solicitude; peculiarly flexible; and wreathes and serpentines round the cable and messenger like an elegantly-modeled garter-snake round the twisted stalks of a vine. Indeed, Selvagee is the exact type and symbol of a tall, genteel, limber, spiralising exquisite. So much for the derivation of the name which the sailors applied to the Lieutenant.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Malia
I previously reflected on Sasha, as in Obama. But, really, shouldn't we let Rick Warren have the last word?
Allison
Change one letter and you have Addison. And change just a bit of that and you get Edison. Funny how that works.
Gwillym
Unsurprisingly—given the barely buried "will" and our familiarity with names like Gwyneth—the Welsh form of William. But still.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Peregrine
Peregrine was the first name of a female contestant on the truly excruciating Bravo reality show Work of Art. She was a hippie, or her parents were, and thus I presume she was named for the bird. Compare, for instance, Falcon, the first name of the Balloon Boy (puzzling, however, are his brothers' names, Bradford and Ryo). Traditionally, though, Peregrine is a masculine name—meaning traveler, and borne, as if a cross, by several saints.
Since I'm on the topic (of raptors), I learned not too long ago—though perhaps falsely—that Fawkes, as in Guy, means hawk, or something of the sort—but sort of similar to falcon, in its way. Yet the etymology of hawk is distinct from that of falcon, to wit:
Middle English hauk, from Old English hafoc; akin to Old High German habuh hawk, Russian kobets a falcon
vs.
Middle English faucoun, falcon, from Anglo-French faucon, from Late Latin falcon-, falco, probably from Latin falc-, falx...
Sleet
From Moby-Dick:
In the fire-side narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled 'A Voyage among the Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;' in this admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with a charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented crow's-nest of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good craft. He called it the Sleet's crow's-nest, in honor of himself; he being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our own names (we fathers being the original inventors and patentees), so likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we may beget.
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