1. Humorous Onomastic Epiphanies
by Don and Alleen Nilsen

2. Calling Someone Out of Their Name: Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Father
Henry Louis Gates Jr. became famous as the author of The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism (1988). He was included in Time Magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans.”
In his book, Gates relates a childhood experience:

3. His father always spoke to Mr. Wilson, and Mr
His father always spoke to Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Wilson always spoke back:
“‘Hello, Mr. Wilson,’ I heard my father say.
‘Hello, George.’
I stopped licking my ice cream cone, and asked my Dad in a loud voice why Mr. Wilson had called him ‘George.’
‘Doesn’t he know your name, Daddy? Why don’t you tell him your name? Your name isn’t George.’”

4. ‘Tell him your name, Daddy.’
‘He knows my name, boy,’ my father said after a long pause. ‘He calls all colored people George.’
There would be a painful moment of silence, and you would wait for it to give way for a discussion of a black superstar such as Sugar Ray or Jackie Robinson.
‘Nobody hits better in a clutch than Jackie Robinson.’
‘That’s right. Nobody.’
I never again looked Mr. Wilson in the eye.”

5. Henry Louis Gates

6. Tom Ross a.k.a. Tikvah Rosenberg
In his book, Tikvah Rosenberg tells the following story:
In 1938, the Rosenbergs left Nazi Germany when Tom was six.
In an attempt to downplay their Jewish heritage, the Rosenbergs changed their surname to Ross when they arrived in the United States.
In order to regain his cultural heritage, Tom legally changed his surname back to Rosenberg.

7. But telling his children was difficult: “The initiatives attacking social services for immigrants, bilingual education, Affirmative Action—made me want to shout ‘I’m an immigrant!’ My children were silent for a moment before they smiled, leaned over, and hugged me.”
When his rabbi heard of his decision, he asked Tom if he had thought about taking a Hebrew first name?

8. About his decision, he tells his children, “Every time I step into a temple, I’m reminded that Judaism has survived for 4,000 years.”
“It has survived because it is a positive religion. My parents, your grandparents, changed their name out of fear. I’m changing it back out of pride.”
“I chose the name Tikvah because it means hope.”

9. CHARACTERS FROM LITERATURE, ETC.
David Copperfield is a character in a Charles Dickens novel.
The other David Copperfield is a magician.
Englebert Humperdinck is the German Composer of the opera “Hansel and Gretel.”
The other Englebert Humperdinck is a rock musician.
Tom Jones is a character in a Henry Fielding novel.
The other Tom Jones is a rock musician.

10. David Copperfield

11. Englebert Humperdinck

12. Tom Jones

13. HISPANIC NAMES
In Spain and Latin America, if a girl were named Ana Maria López Garcia, she has two surnames. The first one is her father’s (López), and the second one is her mother’s (Garcia).

14. If Ana Maria López Garcia married Gregorio Díaz Rodriguez, then she would write her name as Ana Maria López de Díaz.
In Mexico, Ana Maria López de Díaz would go by her maiden name daily (Maria López Garcia), but on formal documentation she would identify herself with her married name (Ana Maria López de Díaz).

15. If she were to have a child, Alicia, Alicia’s full name would be Alicia López Díaz, keeping both her father’s and her mother’s surnames.

16. SUSANNE K. LANGER’S OBSERVATION
“Watch a young child that is just learning to speak play with a toy; he says the name of the object, e.g.: `Horsey! horsey! horsey!’ over and over again, and looks at the object, moves it, always saying the name to himself or to the world at large.
It’s quite a time before he talks to anyone in particular; he talks first of all to himself.”

17. “This is his way of forming and fixing the conception of the object in his mind, and around this conception all his knowledge of it grows. Names are the essence of language…”
“…for the name is what abstracts the conception of the horse from the horse itself, and lets the mere idea recur at the speaking of the name. This permits the conception gathered from one horse experience to be exemplified again by another instance of a horse, so that the notion embodied in the name is a general notion.”

18. Susanne Langer

19. STAGE NAMES TOWARD ETHNICITY
Caryn Johnson  Whoopi Goldberg
Yakov Pokhis  Yakov Smirnoff (to be associated with Russian vodka)

20. Whoopi Goldberg & Yakov Smirnoff

21. STAGE NAMES AWAY FROM ETHNICITY
Aaron Chwatt  Red Buttons
Jacob Cohen  Rodney Dangerfield
David Kaminsky  Danny Kaye
Melvin Kaminsky  Mel Brooks
Allan Konigsberg  Woody Allen
Joseph Levitch  Jerry Lewis
Paul Rubenfeld  Pee-Wee Herman
Gerald Silberman  Gene Wilder

22. Rodney Dangerfield & Danny Kaye

23. STAGES TOWARD FORMALITY
Frances Gumm  Judy Garland
Gary Keillor  Garrison Keillor
Susan Weaver  Sigourney Weaver

24. Judy Garland & Sigourney Weaver

25. STAGE NAMES AWAY FROM FORMALITY
Phyllis Driver  Phyllis Diller
Herbert Gleason  Jackie Gleason
Leonard Hackett  Buddy Hackett
Joseph Keaton  Buster Keaton
Shelton Lee  Spike Lee
Milton Superman  Soupy Sales
Clerow Wilson  Flip Wilson

26. Buddy Hackett & Flip Wilson

27. MADONNA
A member of the American Name Society interviewed Madonna, who expressed surprise that anyone still thought of the mother of Jesus when hearing the name of “Madonna.”

29. THE MARX BROTHERS
Art Fisher was the first one to give stage names to the Marx Brothers. Groucho explains:
“I was the moody one, so he called me ‘Groucho.’ The harp player Adolph—who, after Hitler’s rise to power changed his name to Arthur—would be known as ‘Harpo.’ The fellow who wore the gumshoes (Milton, who had a habit of sneaking around backstage) would be known as ‘Gummo.’ And the one constantly chasing the pretty chicks would be called ‘Chicko.’ When a typesetter accidentally left the k out of Chicko’s name, he became ‘Chico.’”

31. MARX AND LENIN
In celebration of its independence from the Soviet Union, the country of Abkhazia issued a stamp honoring Marx and Lenin.
If someone looks closely at the stamp, they can see pictures of Groucho Marx and John Lennon of the Beatles.

32. Marx: Karl & Groucho

33. Lenin/Lennon: Vladimir & John

34. VLADIMIR NABOKOV
“LOLITA, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
“She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

35. Vladimir Nabokov & Lolita

36. DOLLY PARTON Dolly is the name of the first cloned sheep.
This is because Dolly was cloned from a mammary gland.
She was named, therefore, “in honor of” the buxom Dolly Parton.

37. Dolly Parton

38. PRODUCT & STORE NAMES
Hush Puppy shoes are for tired dogs. Hush Puppies (cornmeal fried with fish) were given their name because they were thrown to dogs to keep them from whining.
V-8 Vegetable Juice was named after the Ford V-8 engine. The Ford engine was V-shaped and had 8 cylinders; V-8 juice has 8 vegetable juices.
Circle K is like OK.
7-Eleven comes from the game of “Craps,” a game of dice. Originally. These stores were open from 7 AM until 11 PM.

39. Ford V-8 & V-8 Vegetable Juice

40. Circle K & 7-Eleven

41. Hush Puppies

42. BABY RUTH
The original Baby Ruth was the daughter of President Grover Cleveland and his wife.
In 1914, when he was only 19 and had a childlike personality, George Herman Ruth’s baseball fans started calling him “Babe,” which later became Babe Ruth in association with President Cleveland’s baby.
Later came the “Baby Ruth” candy bar.

43. Baby Ruth

44. Reese Witherspoon and Reese Withouterspoon

45. TOPONYMICS
The Rock of Gibraltar and the Hudson River gave us the name of Rock Hudson.
Janet Rasmussen’s father changed their family name to Reno, after a city in Nevada.
Other such names are River Phoenix, John Denver, Tennessee Williams, Minnesota Fats, Chevy Chase, Indiana Jones, and all of the people named Dakota, Tex, Cody, Montana, etc.

46. Rock Hudson & Indiana Jones

47. TYPES OF NAMES AND -NYMS
ACRONYMS: radar, unesco
ANTONYMS: boy-girl, black-white
APTONYMS: Hunt and Chase (hunters), Payne (dentist)
CACONYMS: Englebert Humperdinck, Hubert Humphrey
CRYPTONYMS: 007, 99

48. Cryptonyms: 007 & 99 James Bond & Maxwell Smart

49. EPONYMS: ferris wheel, salk vaccine
EUPHONYMS: Edna St. Vincent Millay
EXONYMS: Chinese Checkers, Gypsies, Mormons, Navajos, Papago, Quakers, Wales
GENERIC EPONYMS: Bud, Guy, Jack (le jacquerie), Jane, John
HETERONYMS: bass, bow, close, dove, house, lead, read, row, sow, tear, wind, wound

50. Eponyms: Ferris Wheel & Salk Vaccine George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr
Eponyms: Ferris Wheel & Salk Vaccine George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., & Jonas Salk

51. HOMOGRAPHS: bank, bank
HOMONYMS: to-too-two, bank-bank
HOMOPHONES: to-too-two
LABELS OF PRIMARY POTENCY: abortion, honkey, red neck
NICKNAMES: Bob, Dick, Tom
ORONYMS: the stuffy nose vs. the stuff he knows, the Pulitzer prize vs. the pullet surprise, iced ink vs. I stink

52. Nick Names: Tom Brady & Dick Cheney

53. NOM DE GUERRE: Geronimo
PATRONYMS: Nilsen, MacDonald, Fitzpatrick, Colovitch, Gutierrez, Bin Laden, Ebnascena
PSEUDONYMS: (PEN NAME) : Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll
STRESSONYMS: convert, desert, intimate, invalid, minute, object, Polish, present, produce, record, refuse, sewer, subject
SYNONYMS: big, great

54. Pseydonyms: Lewis Carroll & Mark Twain a. k. a
Pseydonyms: Lewis Carroll & Mark Twain a.k.a. Charles Lutwig Dodgson & Samuel Langhorne Clemens

55. In Conclusion, Consider the name “Kan Ghu Ru”
When the English settlers landed in Australia, they noticed a strange animal that jumped extremely high and far. They asked the aboriginal people using body language and signs, trying to ask them about this animal.

56. They responded with “Kan Ghu Ru
They responded with “Kan Ghu Ru.” The English then adopted the word “kangaroo. What the aboriginal people were really trying to say was, “We don’t understand you.” “Kan Ghu Ru.”

57. NAMES WEB SITES AMERICAN NAME SOCIETY:
HUMOROUS NAMES OF CHEMICAL COMPOUNDS: