What's in a Name Redux

“You people have funny little nicknames for everybody.”

Thus, in the final episode of “Seinfeld,” did lawyer Jackie Chiles reference one of the on-going comedic conceits of this ever-popular sitcom – if you were a friend, lover or just a mere acquaintance of Jerry, George, Elaine or Kramer’s, chances are you’d get tagged with a name that described your profession (The Soup Nazi), social status (The O. Henry Candy Bar Heiress) or a pseudo-female body part (Mulva).

One storyline revolved around George’s efforts to take back his unique baby name (Seven), stolen by his fiancée’s expecting cousins, in exchange for another (Soda). Sounds crazy, doesn’t it, until you stop and consider what people are naming their kids nowadays.

The obvious perpetrators to drag through the mud are celebrities because, as we all know, it’s not hard enough to be the offspring of a beautiful, rich, narcissistic, paparazzi-hounded star, but you also need to lug around a name like Fifi Trixabelle Geldof (charity for millions, but not one drop for your own daughter, eh Bob?), Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Willis (what “Moore” could you expect from a mother named “Demi”) and, of course, Apple Rossdale (I always suspected Gwyneth Paltrow wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I never thought of her as cruel).

That, however, would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Nope, I’m gunning for less publicized, if not equally egregious, monikers in part two of “What’s in a Name.”

Antiques Belong on “The Roadshow”

Look in the back pages of my family history and you’ll turn up such names as Cecil, Aubrey, Myrtle, Olive, Harold and Sophia. Since these ancestors either were born in the 19^th or the dawn of the 20^th century, that’s to be expected. What’s disturbing is how these curios have become all the rage in the new millennium. In the past few months alone, I’ve heard of the birth of an Annabelle, an Isabella and a Ramona. I put it down to a current fascination with such authoresses as Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters. Thankfully, this trend seems to have bypassed boys. I haven’t run into any Heathcliffs or Darcys lately, but have heard of newly-minted Josephs and Andrews. What I take away from this is that parents want their boys to be doctors, lawyers or corporate chiefs, but prefer their daughters to be recluses, spinsters or residents of a god-forsaken English backwater.

It’s an Atlas, Not a Naming Book

Back when “The Sopranos” was all the rage, there was much speculation as to why Tony and Carmela’s oldest child, Meadow, was given such a non-Italiano name. One theory floated was that she was conceived at New Jersey’s Meadowlands, rumored burying ground of still MIA union leader Jimmy Hoffa. This would sound like a real stretch if I didn’t know people who began as zygotes in “Vienna” and “Paris.” It’s bad enough I have to know where their parents “did it,” but this kind of intimate information is why some kids spend years on a psychiatrist’s couch. Which brings me to a more expansive point: China is a nation. Brittany is a province in France. Dakota is the name of two of these United States. They’re destinations found on a map, not designations that should be found on a birth certificate.

“Uneek” is Just Plain Wrong

When they don’t have the nerve to go whole hog in the creative name game, some parents ensure their little ones will still stand out in the crowd by screwing around with spelling. Thus, we have Kloeys, Aimees, Justyns, Robyns, Danis, etc. As a writer, this cock-eyed practice makes me see red, not the least because my Mac’s spell check goes underline crazy. Another grammatical gaffe is dropping in improper punctuation like apostrophes and accent marks. Honestly, if you think other people are going to bother with an umlaut throughout your child’s long life, I got news for you -- it ain’t making it past kindergarten.

To end this two-part screed on a more positive note, the sanest approach to picking a baby name came my way from a former colleague, who was expecting his first child, a daughter. He and his wife picked three names they both liked. Once the bambina made her appearance, they waited and watched until the little Miss revealed the appropriate name to them. Remember, if you act in haste or bad taste, it’s your kid who will repent at leisure.

See that woman on the left? That’s a Gloria.

Or, more specifically, Gloria Swanson, silver screen star and immortalizer of the famous line from Sunset Boulevard, “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small!”

My Mother was named after Gloria Swanson and I, in turn, am named after her. Mom, like the siren Swanson, looks like a Gloria. So do Gloria Estefan, Gloria Gaynor, Gloria Steinem and Gloria Vanderbilt.

Me, I’ve never looked like a Gloria a day in my life. Or felt like one, for that matter. In fact, I’d like to quote the great Bob Marley and state, “I don’t even know my name yet.”

Naming a child is a monumental responsibility. Screw it up, and your foolish adherence to family tradition, wrong-headed creativity, “unique” spelling or simple bad taste will become your offspring’s burden to bear for the rest of their natural born yet unnaturally monikered days.

The trouble will start in grade school, where the playground taunts and teases will be made worse as one teacher after another mispronounces your little darling’s designation. By the time they hit high school, they’ll try to convince everyone to call them by some shortening of their surname, but no one will buy it. If they’re smart, they’ll go to an out-of-state college where, unlike “Cheers,” nobody knows their name and they’ll either resort to their middle name (if you didn’t screw that up, too), their first and middle initials (if, again, you showed no foresight and it’s something like “B.O.”) or just throw up their hands in despair and dream up their own suitable tag, which they’ll legalize as soon as they have that law degree in hand.

If you’re expecting a blessed event in your life, please, I’m begging you -- stop fretting over layettes, diaper bags, strollers and such, and start sweating over what the hell you’re going to call the kid. For those of you looking for guidance, here are a couple of tips for the appellative-challenged:

Some Traditions Deserve To Die

You’ve already read how well being a namesake suits me, but here’s another example. I know a guy from a very large family who’s a better-looking version of Matt Damon. In fact, “Matt” would have been a good name for him. Instead, it’s “Dudley.” Need I tell you it’s his father’s name? They should have done the Dudley “Do Right” thing and let it wither on the family tree. Which brings me to my next rule of thumb: Never run out of steam. Invest as much time getting your second (or third, or fourth) kids’ names right as the first. Don’t throw in the towel and name them “Blanche” after their maternal grandmother or “Floyd” after a rich uncle. If Mother Nature is kind, you’ll be dead but they’ll still have to live with your lazy-assed legacy for many years to come.

Lay Off the Alliteration

This starts when the parents have the same first initial and think it would be cute as hell if their kids’ names also started with that initial. For some odd reason, this seems to be more prevalent with those who have alliterative “K” and “J” names. You may think “Kathy, Kurt, Kevin, Kristen and Kimberley” looks cozily Rockwellesque on your annual Christmas card, but it shows a total lack of imagination to those who slogged through all twenty-six letters of the alphabet in their quest for the perfect name. (And don’t even think of including a photo of the family sporting identical red sweaters embroidered with “your” letter. People will think you’re not only simple-minded but demented.) A load of alliteration is a-okay in an arena like advertising, but with names it’s nattering nonsense.

I could go on and on. And I will in next week’s part two of “What’s in a Name.”

Brittanys, Britneys and Britneés beware!

The Devil is in The Details

He was vilified in the popular press as “the wickedest man in the world.”

He was also a writer, occultist, mountaineer, yogi, social critic, drug addict, sexual hedonist and possibly even a spy. His own mother referred to him as “The Beast.” If that weren’t enough, he was the subject of the first solo single by Ozzy Osbourne, who’s no slouch in the depravity department, either.

Yep, I’m referring to everyone’s favorite Satanist, Aleister Crowley! Funny thing, though. It was this proverbial swine that showed me where the esoteric truffles are buried.

Sometime in the mid-90’s, I was out in Denver visiting an old friend when I made a pilgrimage to The Tattered Cover, an enormous independent bookstore that, for a writer/reader like me, is the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail. As I ambled wide-eyed through floor after tome-stacked floor, I found myself in the “Esoteric” section, confronted by a shelf of tarot cards.

I’ve always been drawn to things of a mystical nature (blame my Sagittarius moon) but, as a former Catholic, I’d been adamantly warned off any and all forms of divination, even that miraculous modern-day oracle, the Magic Eight Ball. I’ve always flouted authority, too, (that damned Sadge moon again), so, with the naiveté of the novice, I chose what I thought was an interesting looking deck and made my purchase.

Thanks to the emerging Internet and its message boards, I soon found a tarot group that pointed out the error of my uninformed ways and turned me in the direction of the classic Rider-Waite deck. A scholar, mystic and one-time member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, A.E Waite toned down the Christian imagery of older decks and directed the illustrating of the whole 78-card deck with simple, almost fairytale images.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but leave it to a scourge like Crowley to put the truth to that lie. Although his “Thoth” deck is awash in almost impenetrable symbolism, ranging from Egyptian mythology to Chinese philosophy and the Hebrew Qabalah, the cantankerous Mr. C went Waite one better by adding an invaluable key to this pictorial cacophony – each of his minor arcana, or trump cards, is also represented by a one-word mnemonic. So while a card like the four of swords shows a quartet of these weapons pointed inwards towards a square (huh?), the title “Truce“ suggests an uneasy peace (ah!).

Accounts differ wildly about Crowley’s death in 1947. Lady Freida Harris, the artist who illustrated the “Thoth“ deck under Crowley’s supervision, claims that the notorious old bastard’s last words were “I am perplexed.“ Because of his crafty inclusion of forty simple words, I am less so.

Sing It Again, Jimi

One recent night, I pulled into the parking lot of a local bar/restaurant, looking forward to a gig by two old friends. I’ve been surrounded by musicians all my life and, when time and the wallet permit, I like to show my support while also having some laughs, and a few cocktails, with the rest of my motley crew.

This particular evening, I hopped out of my car just in time to help one of the players and his wife carry in his gear. I grabbed some equipment and was making my way through the back door when he exclaimed, “Hey Gloria, you look good carrying a guitar!” I just laughed and mentioned the name of another pal who gives guitar lessons to make ends meet. “Maybe he’ll take me on as a student. I promise I’ll be his worst one ever.”

It’s always been one of the minor regrets in my life that I have an ear for appreciating music, but not an ear for making it. Somewhere down the line, music was codified into a virtually limitless series of scales including diatonic, chromatic, pentatonic, whole tone and whatever the hell it is Philip Glass uses for his compositions.

Thanks but no thanks. Writing has always been my métier and I guess I’m stuck with it. But my friend’s remark revived a question that’s been rolling around in the back of my brain for some time: Why do demon guitar players make only serviceable lyricists and brilliant lyricists make only serviceable players?

For instance:

Way before he became “The Boss” (and picked up an incongruous Oakie accent), Jersey boy Bruce Springsteen felt he had to make a choice between developing his writing or guitar playing skills and chose the former. Elvis Costello started his creative life as a writer at the tender age of seven and freely admits that his fretwork is “primitive.” Bob Dylan’s playing has never come close to his lyrical pyrotechnics, although he may have been inspired to write the line, “everybody must get stoned,” when he “went electric” and drove the mob into a murderous frenzy at the 1965 Newport Jazz and Folk Festival.

On the other side of the guitar pick, Eric Clapton can come up with a “Layla” once in a blue moon, but the bulk of his hits were either cover versions (“Cocaine,” “Crossroads”) or two of the most mawkish ballads ever unleashed on the listening public (“Wonderful Tonight,” “Tears in Heaven”). Jimi Hendrix’s self-penned tunes were fine for the Psychedelic Sixties but, through the decades, have taken on a frozen-in-amber, “acid washed” quality. As for Jimmy Page, I think the line “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now” sings for itself.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Prince comes immediately to mind as a short, sharp rebuke to this theory, but I secretly believe “The Artist…” is not of this world and place him on a purple pedestal all his own.

To see if I could find a musical, scientific or cultural explanation for my half-assed hypothesis, I turned to today’s equivalent of the Three Wise Men: Goggle, Bing and Answer.com. I put the query every which way and couldn’t turn up as much as a crackpot blog post(!) to back me up.

What I did turn up, though, were lists – “The Ten Greatest Guitar Players,” “The 100 Greatest Guitar Players,” “Rock ‘n Roll’s Greatest Guitar Players,” “God’s Picks for Guitar Gods,” etc. But when I plugged in “greatest rock lyrics,” the search gurus spit back nothing, nada, zero. Could it be that listeners (or list makers) just don’t care as much about the words as they do the music?

Giving this question a little think, I came to a sad but true, “Uh, yeah.” Blow the guitar part in “Purple Haze” and you’ll get the same crowd response as Dylan at Newport, but lots of folks heard (and sang) the line, “S’cuse me while I kiss the sky” as “S’cuse me while I kiss this guy.”

At least my research turned up one interesting nugget: The mishearing of a lyric is called a “mondegreen.”

But that’s fodder for another column.