Moron Names (More On Names)

I have one or twice addressed the matter of my name, Calder. I was, as you may recall, named after Alexander Calder, an artist of note. Having that as a first name made it even more distinctive than it would have been as a last name, and considerably more so than Alexander would have been as either a first or a last. It took some time to come to terms with the name, but I eventually became very fond of it. It still seldom appears anywhere, though it is a touch more common than it once was.

I have met another Calder (online, if that counts), which was an odd but not unwelcome experience. It being a woman made it more peculiar still, though it's hard to say that it ought only be a man's name considering it's primarily a surname in the first place. She appears on Facebook by a derivative of Calder presently, which makes it easier to take. It was rather jarring every time I saw it before, and I don't know when that was going to improve.

Name Your Pleasure

It can be a scary thing when you go to some event where you know few people. The other day that happened. I had the vague idea that this picnic I went to in the park might involve just four or five people, all of whom I had met or knew relatively well. It turned out to be much bigger than that, eventually encompassing several times more than the number I anticipated. I know only those who I had been expecting, and the rest were new to me. It was a little intimidating, as such things are.

I managed to muddle along all right, I think. There were those moments where you pretend that you are busy with your phone, and there were times when I engrossed myself in the food, which is easily taken and eaten, as opposed to the frequently elusive conversation. Mostly though, I found myself talking, and a healthy amount of it was with new people. I don't know that any life achievements happen at a picnic, but I at least showed my social side better than usual.

The No Name Defense

Something you may notice from my writing in this blog is my reticence towards the use of names. It may be so that it is more difficult to read that way, for I know that it is harder to write. I have my reasons, you may rest assured of that. Where people I know are concerned, I do take care to 'protect the innocent' by leaving out their names and trusting that the people who ought to know will and that those who ought not to suffer none from it.

More important are the proper names which belong to various concerns in the private sector. I feel very strongly about not naming businesses if I can help it. I get nothing from promoting their brands, and let it be  known throughout the land that I do not help those who don't need it for nothing. Anyone who is doing better than I am can certainly afford to compensate me properly for prostrating myself. Anyone who is not doing as well as I am- well, God help them.

Noms Faux

I have a particular interest in the fake names people concoct for comic purposes. That I would say so might make you think that I'm a fan and practitioner of the crank call, but such is not the case. It's fun, though, to come up with fake names that are meant to convey some point about a person. Someone who is tight with a dollar might be called 'Cheapo McTightwad', or something that rolls off the tongue better. Inventive names of that kind are very amusing, sometimes being applied to adult film actors, who invariably have over-the-top stage names(?) that are meant to suggest their prowess at their chosen profession. There's a thing that these fake names seem to have in common, and I don't know that anyone but me would even give it a thought.

Isn't it funny how the great majority of fake names seem to be of Irish origin? The formula seems to be that you have 'Mc' sandwiched by two redundant terms for the thing you're trying to associate the person with. This is what I have done in the above paragraph. Somehow you have to have some element of a name suggesting some national or cultural trappings. It can't just be some plain white bread kind of name that you're aping, or else it isn't funny. I wonder why that is. In any case, Irish names fit the bill so much so that they virtually squeeze out all others. That really is a shame, for plenty of other cultures have a way of forming names that would be extraordinarily good for joke names. If I may, I'll offer up a few examples.

That's The Name Of That Tune

Recently, the Social Security Administration released the most recent list of the top names for newborn babies in the US. The top names names for girls and boys were, respectively Isabella and Jacob (the latter being on top again for the eleventh year in a row). Of considerable interest to me, of course was my own first name: Calder. Other people have frequently expressed some level of fascination with my name all my life, and they had invariably never heard of it before. It's not one of those bizarre names applied to children by whacked-out celebrities, like Moon Unit or something like that, but it's statistically about as uncommon.

Readers will recall that I yesterday posted on this blog an open letter to the only other person with my first name that I have ever met. As I noted, that was years ago. More recently, there is or was in my very apartment building a man with Calder as a surname. He and I have occasionally been delivered each other's mail by a surely harried and over-worked mail carrier. The two encounters were most unnerving for me, as I have felt an exclusivity something like the only man on earth where names are concerned. I rather had gotten to like that.

Open Letter

Dear Calder,

It's been years since our encounter, and while I've made no attempt to reach you, I've thought about you often. I imagine you may have thought about me. I speak of you to friends frequently, as they often inquire of me whether I've ever met anyone with the same name. "Only once," I tell them, "and it was pretty uncomfortable for both of us". It seemed so for you, although it may have been your age that gave me that impression. You were a camper of perhaps twelve, and I was a college-aged staff member of the camp: the disparity makes any attempt at a friendly exchange problematic, regardless of obvious common ground.