ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

What's in a Name?

I was reminded of the words of a novelty song by one of my heroes, Johnny Cash, called ‘A Boy Named Sue’. It started with; “My daddy left home when I was three and he didn't leave much to Ma and me, just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze. Now, I don't blame him cause he run and hid, but the meanest thing that he ever did, was before he left, he went and named me ‘Sue’.”

I’ll call this the lament on cross-dresser names.

The silly song came to mind while I was sitting in a hospital waiting room the other day. The logistics sergeant called out a name that sounded quite straight forward…”Loren?” They now only use first names for privacy reasons. I guess some human rights policy advisor said if they used full names, then every one in the waiting room would know who was there and one of them would surely be a crook and go to the phone book to
check their address and then go do a break-in. That’s about the only reason I could think somebody made up this rule.

Anyway, the sergeant called out again, “Loren?” All of a sudden, a big booming voice responded, “That’s me!” I was just as surprised as the logistics woman was embarrassed because she was looking elsewhere at several women sitting on the other side of the room. “Boy”, I thought, “Who would name a son Loren?”

Off went Loren following the blushing sergeant.

So time moved along and after I read a two year old McLean’s magazine cover to cover, the sergeant came out again and called out, “Ray?” Now this time sitting right in front of her was Ray who put down the nearly-finished sweater she started that morning, “Yes, I’m Rae.”

“Yikes”, I thought, this logistics nurse wishes there was a log nearby to crawl under.

A quote from the arts now; (you’ll understand my low-brow level of the arts in a moment) it comes from the film classic ‘Airplane’. Remember when Leslie (see, there I go again with another cross-dressing name) Neilson as Dr. Rumack said to pseudo-pilot Robert Hays playing Ted Striker, "Surely you can't be serious?” and the comeback was, “I am serious, and don't call me Shirley."

Don’t laugh, we had a very notable and gentlemanly eye-doc in our town named Shirley.

Also, not far from the Big House lives a fearless farmer from the French speaking community. His name is Jean-Marie. He was honoured the other day as the Entrepreneur of the Year and in his acceptance speech which more like a tome, he told of going to school for the first time and the teacher asking the girls to line up on one side and the boys the other. As she called out Jean Marie’s name, without looking, she motioned for him to go to the girl’s side. And the confusion continues to this day. Our local newspaper couldn’t even get it right. They took a picture
of the farm couple with their award. But the paper had to publish an apology the next day because they had Jean-Marie labeled as his wife and Lucille as him. Now that’s a stretch!

Back to the arts, who remembers what John Wayne’s name was? Well, I do. He was given the moniker Marion Morrison. And how about macho Mel Gibson? Are you ready for this… Columcille Gibson. Can you imagine a kid growing up with that name?

I think sticking to gender specific names is the smart way to go. So, what is with parents and sometimes the girl herself choosing to be called by the male leaning version of the name? There’s Sam for Samantha, Joe for Joanne, Bobby for Roberta etc. It’s a minefield out there for those working Santa’s list!

So as I am sitting here on the verandah expounding on this theme, I am thinking about all those poor kids who get saddled with cross-dressing names. I think the results, just like Johnny Cash laments, are downright cruel for the youngster, as he sings, “And if I ever have a son, I think I'm gonna name him Bill or George! Anything but Sue!”

But my better 7/8ths is chiming in now. She says think about what we named our progeny. Our daughter is named Leigh. And our son, well, his name is Sean. Guilty.