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