100 Things That Still Make Being Me Just That Bit Better... 74

[sallymn]

Fred McGherkin-Squirter

... was once, apparently, a real person. In the Sydney telephone book. Many years ago.

I have no idea who he was or where he came from... or went... or even if he was real or just a journalist's imagination at work, but along with the 1991 newspaper cutting that brought him to my attention and the others immortalised

Comments

[jhall1]

Some parents have a lot to answer for in their choice of names for their offspring. One name that always amuses me is Lou Rawles, but his parents can be forgiven as I assume that doesn't have the same punning connotation in the US. There was also a Frenchman called Just Jaeckin, whom I always thought of as Just Joking.

[linda_joyce]

Now there I agree with you, back in the 70s I had a child join the library that I was manageing named Xenith and another, probably named after his grandfathers who was Robert Arnold Thomas. In the same library I had a Mrs Cattee(pronounced catty) and a Mr Smellie. He had no choice in the matter but she must really have loved the man she married

[bluewolf458]

In the mid 60s I taught for a while in a school where there were several families with the name Smellie, and they weren't all related - it seemed to be a local name. But they all pronounced it 'Smiley'.

And in a different school, a year or so later, there was a kid with the surname Boddy and I simply could not persuade the kids - even the brightest of them - that a corpse was spelled 'body'...

[linda_joyce]

Not knowing how h pronounced his name I diplomatically called him Sir

[lost_spook]

:-D

But the fact that they are there colours the world a little more brightly for me, and that's enough.

Well, quite.

[ultrapsychobrat]

Yes, weird names are fun, so are "appropriate" names, too. I worked for a sheriff's wants, warrants, and records department for a while when I was finishing my course work to become a teacher. One of the officers was Lieutenant Broadbelt--I always smiled when he called of the phone.

[sallymn]

I think most people keep a list in their heads... :)

[jomacmouse]

I'm starting to keep a list of sorts at work. I found a real person actually named Ermintrude in the database. I only went looking because I was checking a packet for a woman with the first name of Hildagard.

[sallymn]

They'll both come back into fashion... one day....

[vjezkova]

I love this!
Of course we also have really "interesting" names - the funniest coming from 50-60s, when the euphoria from the communist "perfect state" was still sincere after the war - difficult to translate though: Jitřenka, Pětiletka, Budovatelka...at least "pětiletka" is something like a five-year plan of economic development - a product of socialistic policy...

[sallymn]

I think every country does, but there's no doubt the ideology-driven countries of the 20th century had some doozies...