Kirbyjon

Kirbyjon Caldwell officiated Jenna Bush's wedding, the one that took place in front of the giant cross, not the one in Rhinebeck, NY, to a Jew.

Jill

Of all the weird things—that Heidi Montag's plastic surgeon died after driving his car off a cliff—while tweeting—about his border collie—who survived the crash with minor injuries—the weirdest is that dog—Jill—is named after his girlfriend—Charmaine Jill Blake. With Frank Ryan, so goes romance.

Watershine

Watershine Woods is a garlic farmer. You can read about her in Garlic, Garlic, Garlic by Linda and Fred Griffith.

There's also Maybelline Watershine Pure Lipstick.

Gurdon

I just read a memoir published in the latest (September 2010) issue of Harper's. Roxana Robinson names her uncles: Sammy, Gurdon, William, Henry. Gurdon! I didn't place this as a variant of Gordon until I looked it up. It seemed more a mutation of Gudrun.

Addendum: my mother informs me she once knew a man named Gurdon Waddles. He was very nice, and no one thought his name was funny.

Zane

When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, there was some twerp—a fourth-grader, probably, with a nub of a rat-tail—who was a little hotshot basketball player, and I was having none of it. My way of trash-talking him was going up next to him when he was at the water fountain and whispering, with as much cool menace as I could muster, "I bet I can guess your name." I'd overheard someone shout it at him, maybe even someone as embarrassing as his mother.

"Oh, yeah?" he said. "What is it?"

"West," I said.

But it wasn't West, it turned out, and later he probably stole the ball from me or was unimpressed by my left-handed dribbling or something equally impertinent. His name was Zane.

Or maybe I guessed his name was Zane, and it was West. I no longer remember which way it went.

West, the last name of that guy who played Batman. Zane, the last name of my downstairs neighbor, the one who always called up my mother to tell her I was being too loud.

I'm sorry I guessed his name wrong, but I'm glad it was Zane, not West. Unless it was the other way around, in which case I'm doubly sorry.

Jackie

Hélène Cixous, Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint:

...of Jackie and of Jacques, Jacques with que and with s, Jacques with the silent sign of the plural in French and Jackie with his i and his mute e, his feminine silenced and his American ck, Jackie a period name, the period when Algeria's Jewish families, naive, native, were infatuated with foreign names especially the Anglo-American ones. They just loved Jack, William, Pete, and the vocables conjured up by fantasies of a promised land other than France, longed for but increasingly explicitly hostile.... So he was elected Jackie, as my grandfather names his Oran hat shop Highlife pronounced "Iglif," Jackie like Jackie Koogan the Kidd, Jackiderrida, that's him all right, take a gander not everyone sees him. Jackid in his outsize cap, always ready to pick a fight. Jackie like j'acquis get it? and jacqui get who? ...

Hal

Hal and Hank, as in the Steinbrenner sons, are both diminutives of Henry (see also: Harry). In the case of the Steinbrenners, one is a Henry, the other a Harold.

Benedict

I'll say it—that (literary, theatrical, cinematic, televisual) works that call attention to the names of their characters, these are probably bad works. And I love names, so I must be right.

Take True Blood, which is definitely bad. And, what do you know, this is a show that repeatedly has called attention to its characters' names. I remember, for instance, Tara remarking on her name being indication of how her mother abused her, it being also the name of a plantation and all; and recently we had an exchange about Crystal—was she named for champagne or meth? And Eggs, he was so called because his name is Benedict. I know this because he told me.

Then again, I like Nabokov.

Then again again, I do not love Nabokov.

Yvonne

No joke: I was pretty convinced, up until yesterday, that Yvonne was a feminine form of Yvon (which it is), and that both names were variations on John. I mean, they are sort of pronounced (by my rough American tongue) how Ivan is pronounced: ee-VAHN!

But, no, they mean "yew." Yes, "yew."

If I may save face, however, permit me to note that they are ultimately derived from Ivo, meaning "yew"; there is, simultaneously but unrelated, Ivo, a diminutive of Ivan. An honest mistake!

Raphaël

W. D. Redfern, Michel Tournier, Le coq de bruyère:

Harry

"In Americans [the bourgeois family name] arouses a curious unease. To conceal the uncomfortable distance existing between particular people they call themselves Bob and Harry, like replaceable members of teams." — Horkheimer & Adorno

Étienne

Conversation, circa 2000—

Friend: Do you want to see Saint Etienne?
Hannah: Subbadubbah?
Friend: No, not Santana. Saint Etienne. They're on Sub Pop.

Isis

Isis is a lot like Lulu. Or is it more like Mimi?

X

Not El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz—I went to high school with a wholly whitebread girl with the middle name of X, just X, just like Homer J. Simpson's middle name is just J. It was pronounced "ex," not "zuh" (as in Xavier) or "jhuh" (as in, I think, Xiomara and Ximena); it was, in other words, just X of the Roman alphabet, not X of Cyrillic (usually transliterated as "kh," and close to "ch" [as in Chanukkah] in sound, in my unprofessional opinion [very unprofessional, indeed, incorrect — ed.]). And let's not forget the X of Mandarin! No, let's! X. X. X. Just X.

If she changed her name, she could be ex-X. And someone she breaks up with could refer to her as "my ex, ex-X." And so on, x cetera.

Sisera

How neato was Jael when she rammed a fucking post through Sisera's skull?

Caden

I am not at all a fan of Charlie Kaufman—rare is the high-concept movie that does "it" for me—and Synecdoche, New York is no exception. "I think I have blood in my stool." "That stool in your office?" That is not clever writing, it is shitty writing.

But what lost me, really, because I am a pedant above all, was the name Caden, which is of only recent vintage (i.e., the early nineties). I wish, I guess, that Kaufman had just gone whole hog—named his protagonist not Caden but Cadence, even if it is a girl's name, or, better yet, since he's so into homophones, Kaydence. That'd, at least, have some guts.

Eulalie

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust:

"Well, now, that's Saint Hilaire, who in certain provinces is also called, you know, Saint Illiers, Saint Hélier, and even, in the Jura, Saint Ylie. And these various corruptions of sanctus Hilarius are not the most curious that have occurred in the names of the blessed. For instance, your own patron, my good Eulalie, sancta Eulalia—do what she is in Burgundy? Santi Éloi, quite simply: she has become a male saint. You see Eulalie?—after you die they will turn you into a man."

Gamaliel

What the "G" in Warren G. Harding stands for. Not what the "G" in G-spot stands for.

Warren

This name is cute because it is where bunnies live.

This name is not cute because Warren G. Harding was a stern-looking motherfucker.

Isannah

Paul Revere's dad was named Apollos Rivoire.

Paul Revere's siblings were named Deborah, Paul, Frances, Thomas, John, Mary, and Elizabeth. One of them married a woman named Silence.

Paul Revere had sixteen children: Deborah, Paul, Sarah, Mary, Frances, Mary, Elizabeth, Isannah, Joshua, John, Lucy, Harriet, John, Maria, and John.

Stetson

A cowboy name.

Here are some other names a cowboy could have:

• Wyatt
• Bill
• Rodeo
• Wayne
  
• Colt
• Beretta
• Rossi
• Winchester
• Remington
• Uzi
• Piece
  
• Glock