Arundel

The history of the American animation industry yields some excellent names.

There are the nicknames: Bugs (Joseph Hardaway), Friz (Isadore Freleng), T. Hee (Thornton Hee), Tish-Tash (Frank Tashlin), Grim (Myron Natwick), Shamus (James Culhane), Bobe (Robert Cannon), Tex (Frederick Avery), Vip (Virgil Partch).

There are the Walts—Disney and Lantz and Kelly and Peregoy.

There are the character names, too, of course. It is thanks to Mr. Magoo, after all, that I have my own nickname, Goose. I am most fond of an early Disney triumvirate: Julius (the Cat), Oswald (the Lucky Rabbit), and Mortimer (later Mickey Mouse). And even Daffy Duck brings us perilously close to Dafydd, a Welsh form of David (other variants, including diminutives, I dig: Dudel, Taffy, Daveth, Taavetti, Dewey).

Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising together produced sound cartoons under the moniker Harman-Ising, including a series called, appropriately, Happy Harmonies.  When Ub (born Ubbe Eert, sometimes credited as U.B.) Iwerks joined forces with Walt Disney, Iwerks’s name went first, lest they sound like an ophthalmologist. Now there is an experimental animation festival named after him.

Disney’s family tree is particularly fruitful. There is Roy, yes, and more than a couple Kepples (who I like to pretend were actually Koppels), and my personal favorite, Disney’s Great-Grandpa Arundel.