Ingeborg

This is an entry I am already not proud of.

My cat is name Ingeborg, after Victor Sjöström’s Ingeborg Holm (1913), but she probably wouldn’t be named Ingeborg if I weren’t an ugly American. After all, in my rough tongue and to my tin ear, her name is awful funny-sounding. Like cyborg, like Murgatroyd, like Scheherazade—or, if we go the all-Scandinavian route, like Aslög (ass meaning god), like Barbro (Barbara), like Falkor (cf. The NeverEnding Story [1984]), like Gunilla, like Øystein, like Halfdan (“originally a byname for someone who was part Danish”), like Jerk, like Odd, like Roar, like Rut, like Torkel.

Other Ing- names I do not, in my brutish, culturally insensitive way, find as amusing, though they are rather musical, e.g., Ingegard. I do have a story I like to tell about an Ing- name, however, which I might as well tell again now. In the eleventh grade I had a huge Stephen Malkmus poster on my wall and my heart was set a-pounding by the prospect of him going on tour to promote his first solo record. Imagine my delight, then, when news of this contest reached my inbox: 

As you might have read, Stephen’s solo debut was provisionally entitled ‘Swedish Reggae.’ For fear of getting filed in the “reggae” or “world music” section at Tower, a corporate decision was made to force Stephen to call the album something really crazy. Like, ‘Stephen Malkmus.’ Anyhow, if you can name another practicioner of Swedish reggae, you might win yourself a pair of tickets to Stephen’s sold out show at the Bowery Ballroom this Thursday night (1/25). The most creative answers will be unveiled in this space.

The fine print—that winners had to be eighteen—did not deter me. I was a smitten sixteen-year-old. We would work it out, or so I would dream beneath my paper Malkmus. Like Cupid shoots an arrow, then, I sent off my most creative answer: Ingmarley.  

Not a good name for a cat, incidentally, but perhaps suitable for a dog.

Fleur

As is often the case, the New York Times Weddings and Celebrations section is a source of inspiration:

Thirty years ago, Nancy LeSage and Fleur Marks were strangers with something in common. Miss LeSage, of Madison, Conn., and Miss Marks, of Princeton, N.J., saw their photos side by side on a Society News page of The New York Times on Sunday, May 2, 1982.
Miss LeSage, it was announced on Page 77, had become engaged to William Koerner Hellmuth, while Miss Marks, her wedding announcement in the next column, had taken the surname of her husband, William Dodge Rueckert, whom she had married the day before....
Mrs. Hellmuth’s daughter, Grayson, began dating Mrs. Rueckert’s son, Cleveland, in September 2004, while both were students at the University of Vermont...
And now, the two brides have something else in common, as the wedding announcement of their children, Grayson Marshall Hellmuth and Cleveland Dodge Rueckert, appears, at right, in The Times.

Just, like, to recap some of the names in this article: Nancy (f), Fleur (f), William (m), William (m), Grayson (f), Marshall (f), Cleveland (m), Dodge (m).

A question I have: Why is Grayson’s middle name Marshall?

Philbert

I feel I can claim with some degree of confidence that many an onomasticator is intimately familiar with the writings of Lucy Maud Montgomery, in particular those that detail the antics of her plucky heroine Anne Shirley. Lest you have forgotten, I remind you:

"Well, don't cry any more. We're not going to turn you out-of-doors to-night. You'll have to stay here until we investigate this affair. What's your name?"
The child hesitated for a moment.
"Will you please call me Cordelia?" she said eagerly.
"Call you Cordelia? Is that your name?"
"No-o-o, it's not exactly my name, but I would love to be called Cordelia. It's such a perfectly elegant name."
"I don't know what on earth you mean. If Cordelia isn't your name, what is?"
"Anne Shirley," reluctantly faltered forth the owner of that name, "but, oh, please do call me Cordelia. It can't matter much to you what you call me if I'm only going to be here a little while, can it? And Anne is such an unromantic name."
"Unromantic fiddlesticks!" said the unsympathetic Marilla. "Anne is a real good plain sensible name. You've no need to be ashamed of it."
"Oh, I'm not ashamed of it," explained Anne, "only I like Cordelia better. I've always imagined that my name was Cordelia—at least, I always have of late years. When I was young I used to imagine it was Geraldine, but I like Cordelia better now. But if you call me Anne please call me Anne spelled with an E."
"What difference does it make how it's spelled?" asked Marilla with another rusty smile as she picked up the teapot.
"Oh, it makes such a difference. It looks so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can't you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-n-n looks dreadful, but A-n-n-e looks so much more distinguished. If you'll only call me Anne spelled with an E I shall try to reconcile myself to not being called Cordelia."

Anne, you will also remember, goes on to fall in love with a boy named Gilbert Blythe, but only after a protracted period of madly disliking him. I recall, but imprecisely, that she at some point muses on his name—that, say, he is indeed not blithe, and nor is he as handsome or as lovable as a Gilbert should be.  

Mind you, that a Gilbert could be handsome, let alone lovable, I once thought wildly funny.

Several years before I first encountered the antics of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s plucky heroine Anne Shirley I watched and rewatched The Muppets Take Manhattan, wherein Jim Henson’s hapless proxy Kermit the Frog, suffering from amnesia, befriends a Bill, a Jill, a Gill, and dubs himself ... Phil.

I should first mention, because it bears mentioning, that I was always troubled by the inclusion of Gill, for who indeed is named that, spelled that way? Gil is one thing, Gill another. But no mind.  After all, I always appreciated, too, that Bill comes from William, Jill from Jill (or, maybe, maybe, Jillian), Gill from Gilbert, and Phil from Philip—that is, that four very different names can nonetheless yield four very similar nicknames.

Unless, of course, Kermit’s Phil was not a Philip but a Philbert, and just as Gilbert yields Gil(l) and Albert yields Al ... well, you know.

And yet, I note, rarely did I mentally link Gilbert to Albert. Gilbert was, for prepubescent me, a wildly unhandsome and unlovable name for its roundness, its bounciness, its goofiness—its gill, as in a fish, and its bert, as in burp, as in that cranky Muppet. No, Albert I linked with Alfred—how many Alfreds, I wonder, go by Al and how many by Fred? If I were one, I would claim that the al meant I was the definite article.

The phil of Philbert, though, means no one, not even Anne Shirley, can accuse it of unromantic fiddlesticks.

Anomie

Not a name.

But I do not see why not.

I mean: Sophie, Marie, Amelie, Elodie, Aimée.

And: Naomi, Noemi, Noemie, Noam, Naum, Naomh.

Not to mention: Annabelle, Analise, Analy, Anaïs, Anatole.

And: Anaphora, Ennui, Aporia, Différance, Dilettante, Angst, Découpage, Agony. 

Scheherazade

I have elsewhere—you will have to trust me on this—professed my profound dislike for most things Slate and all things Dear Prudence, although disliking a certain thing rarely—and again you will have to trust me on this—prevents me from engaging with it. Sometimes I am grateful for my acts of self-flagellation, at least insofar as they yield onomastic insight. To wit, from a recent Dear Prudence column:  

Dear Prudence,
I am a 30-year-old Middle Eastern journalist who has had a girlfriend for several years. Both of us are virgins. Because of the government and our families we can't have intimate sexual relations, but we will marry next year. I love my girlfriend but the problem is I daydream a lot about sex. Half of the sexy daydreams are about my girlfriend and half of them about other women friends, workmates, actresses, and porn stars. I do not dream about being emotionally close to them, only about sex. Is this a betrayal? Could this end my marriage? How can I stop?
—Daydream Problem

Dear Daydream,
So you want to stop your sexual daydreams—I’ve heard death is a very effective cure. Until then, despite what you may have been told about your sexual fantasies, they are perfectly normal. From your brief description, yours are pretty much standard issue. Your thoughts are not a betrayal and they shouldn’t interfere with your marriage. You and your wife may even want to share some of your fantasies as you get to know each other better in bed. (Leave out the ones about how hot your co-worker Scheherazade is.) I don’t know how accessible sexual reading material is in your country, but as you approach the happy day, you might want to do some boning up on what’s coming. Sex Made Easy, by Debbie Herbenick, is one place to start.
—Prudie

At issue here is darling Prude’s parenthetical—for are we not to be amused by the prospect that someone by the ghastly name of “Scheherazade” could be hot? This, after all, is an advice columnist smitten by lousy puns (“boning up on what’s coming,” hyuck!). She is, I hate to say it, attentive, however superficially, to the rhythms of language—i.e., what sounds funny. And “Scheherazade,” that sounds funny: the only thing remotely feminine about it is the “her” in the middle!

The insight thus yielded is that our dear Prudence is not above the occasional racist larff. Tune in next week when she joshes about a well-read LaceDarius and Malice the mathematician. 

Malice

Not too long ago I was appropriately outraged by the facts reported by Ada Calhoun in the New York Times Magazine piece “The Criminalization of Bad Mothers,” an outrage I then felt moved to broadcast on Facebook. The following exchange then ensued:

—Not to detract from the seriousness of the piece, but I know this caption is relevant to your interests: “Heather Capps, 25, and her 5-month-old son, Malice”
—Yeah, what I find interesting is how that name bucks trends—relatively few male names end in that sound and the “a” isn't the incredibly popular long “a” of Aidan, Jacob, and Mason. (I mean, there is Elias and Jonas and Jarvis and Ellis, etc. But they have nothing on the popularity of names ending in “n” and “ah.”) (And lest you think I am missing that, like, his name is Malice, trust me, I noticed.)
—Right, “Malice” sounds like “Alice,” which is super feminine! what if we all started naming our boy babies super femme names like “Clarice” and “Denise” and “Avarice”! 
—“Phallice”

Look, I do not pretend to be above the frequent cryptoracist and/or cryptoclassist shit and/or giggle. But let us just take a moment to admire Heather Capps, who indeed gave her son a remarkable name.
According to Social Security Administration data, there were no more than four babies name Malice in 2011. So while it might not be to my taste, but, Jesus, very little is—and, moreover, it is interesting, which is more than you can say about, say, my name or, probably, your name. 

Nicodemus

Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend:

“Do you like the name of Nicodemus? Think it over. Nick, or Noddy.”
“It is not, sir,” Mr. Wegg rejoined, as he sat down on his stool, with an air of gentle resignation, combined with melancholy candor; “it is not a name as I could wish any one that I had a respect for, to call ME by; but there may be persons that would not view it with the same objections.—I don't know why,” Mr Wegg added, anticipating another question.
“Noddy Boffin,” said that gentleman. “Noddy. That's my name. Noddy—or Nick—Boffin. What's your name?”