An irregular feature for this blog that I’m instituting here: As someone who had a name that high schoolers thought was hysterically funny for some dámņëd reason, I will occasionally take note of individuals who probably suffered more in high school than I did.
The first winner:
HUNTER PENCE.
A rookie outfielder for the Houston Astros, I think we can surmise that this is someone who never wanted to enter the armed forces, the police force, or become a commercial airline pilot, for fear of achieving the rank of “Captain.” Because that would make him (say it out loud) Captain Hunter Pence.
What the hëll were his parents thinking? Of all first names to link to a name like Pence. What, “Tup’ Pence was taken? How many times did this poor devil get called “Underpants” throughout his school career? We’ll probably never know. He may well have become an athlete just so he’d be big and strong enough to beat the crap out of kids who made fun of him.
PAD
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If you don’t mind my asking, Mr. David, why did they make fun of your name? Is it because your last name can also be used as a first name? If there is an obvious joke, it eludes me …
It’s high school. It doesn’t have to be funny or make sense. Yelling “Peeeeter Daayyyyyvid” in a nasal fashion is considered the height of hilarity.
PAD
I’m kinda suprised this would be the first entry, but then again I’m no sports fan.
Richard Gere would have been my first entry. What exactly is a ‘Ðìçk Gear’ and what is it’s primary function?
There’s an architect in my area who goes by the name of Ðìçk Handler (or at least he did — I’m not certain if he’s still alive). Why he chose not to go by “Richard” or “Rich” is beyond me.
A friend of mine tells of a classmate named Garth Rader. Up until August of 1977, a perfectly harmless name. After that….
My Eighth Grade science teacher still winds this one hands down..
First, the name:
Ðìçk Koch. No, not Richard, his parents named him Ðìçk. Last name is pronounced the same as a slang term for the male organ.
Second, he chose to be a TEACHER.
Runner up: Former CEO of one of my employers, Richard (Ðìçk) Wood.
My friend Daniel had to wear the “Donkey” nickname throughout primary school and most of secondary school. Why? Because his name starts with the letter D. Seriously, that’s all they needed.
I met a bank teller named Sandy Shore. Sandy C. Shore, to be precise.
She had a little beach diorama at her desk.
And here in New Hampshire, we were represented in Congress for several years by Ðìçk Swett.
Honest.
Look it up.
J.
I feel your pain, PAD, as “David Simon” seemed oddly amusing at my High School.
In the Australian Federal Government, the Federal Treasurer is “Peter Costello”, and the minister for health is “Tony Abbott”. Whenever they make a joint announcement, or hold a press conference together, the newspapers have a field-day with their headlines.
I had a substitute teacher in high school with a name that no one could understand why their parents did this to them.
Richard Stroker.
And yes, he preferred to be called Ðìçk.
Perhaps the worst/best name I’ve ever encountered was a guest I checked into the hotel I was working at many years ago: Rocky Glasscock. It was embossed on his credit card, that’s how he signed the registration. We were trained to address people by name but I could only bring myself to call him ‘sir’. He must’ve gone through hëll in school.
My first name’s Vincent. I remember some kids getting a kick out of calling me Vinny the Pooh. Though I imagine they left the h off the end.
Well, my own last name fits into this topic, but I’ll keep it to myself, as I don’t want to be a future winner in this category. Suffice it to say that my oldest brother changed his last name to “Bonner”. Now that I’m long out of high school, that’s how most people “assume” I pronounce mine, until I correct them.
But I’ve run into some sympathetic people with odd names of their own. The service manager of the local marina introduced himself as “Race”. I commented,”Like Race Bannon, from Jonny Quest?”.
Yes, it turns out, except that his family name is Harder, so his parents decided he should go through life as “Race Harder”.
Has anyone here read Tim Allen’s first book? I think it has the phrase “Naked Man” in the title.
In the intro he talks about how “Allen” is his stage name, and that in real life, well, he’s a Ðìçk. Tim Ðìçk, I would guess.
And back in the glory days of Comedy Central’s Man Show, Kimmel and Carolla brought together a panel of 4 or 5 guests with “classic” name honors.
Andy Ðìçk was the Guest of Honor, with appearances by Ðìçk Hertz and Mike Hunt, IIRC. The actual panel was followed by a scrolling list of people that had been contacted, but turned down the opportunity to appear on camera.
I had a great-uncle named Ðìçk Payne. I kid you not.
I knew the name of every corn product manufactured in the US before 5th grade. Add in the fact that my first name rhymes with the colloquialism for homosexual…man, did elementary school suck.
At the risk of seeming humorless (Me…? Really?) I’m surprised that abuse based on one’s name was a serious issue in PAD’s high school days. Where I grew up, that sort of thing was over by junior high, and abuse at the high school level was generally based on appearance, strength, agility and intelligence. As PAD wasn’t explicit in describing his own experience, I couldn’t guess what it was, or what was the primary cause of any hypothetical pantsings. In my own experience, a lot of abuse ostensibly based on words or appearance is much more recognition of weakness or expression of ethnic hatreds.
No joke, i went to school with two of the worst named kids :
Ben Dover
Anita Little
But what takes the cake was in the mid 80’s a man ran for city council with the name : O.G. Morehead, i was only eight at the time but laughed my ášš off years later when i realized why my mother kept snickering when she saw a campaign sign
Not so much a painful name, but our mayor here in
Austin has an appropriate one – Mayor Will Wynn. Needless to say, he did.
I remember kids trying to make fun of my name in elementary school. The only thing they ever came up with was calling me “Jason mason.” I could never figure out why that was supposed to bother me. It’s just my name with another word that rhymes. Jason just wasn’t a bad name to have.
The odd thing is that my Dad is also named Jason, and he says that was a *horrible* name to have when he was a kid. I’ve never figured out why.
Charlie Brown, Farmer Brown, Brown the Clown (and I was a serious kid in school) all from the surname that a government official messed up when my family came to America through Ellis Island. Amazing what a German accent can do with the name Braun.
In the intro he talks about how “Allen” is his stage name, and that in real life, well, he’s a Ðìçk. Tim Ðìçk, I would guess.
His birth name is in fact Tim Allen Ðìçk.
Being in data entry, I run across strange names from time to time. I once saw a death certificate for a woman named Golden Rule – Rule being her married name.
No joke, there is a doctor at the local VA hospital with the name of Ðìçk Balz. So lovely when they page him…
Over 20 years ago, I attended art school with a guy whose last name was “McDonald.” Take a wild guess as to what his first name was.
Now, in defense of his parents, he was named in the mid-sixties, before commercials featuring that character went national. I’m sure that he received several kinds of flak for having that name while a child in the ’70s. Never knew what his middle name is, nor why he chose not to go by that, instead.
Haven’t seen him since art school. Let’s hope he doesn’t own a farm these days. If so, let’s hope he sells it before he gets too old.
Oh, and I also encountered a dermatologist once whose last name was Pepper. i suppose having that as a last name means you have only two career options: doctor or sergeant.
A girl in my school is Nicole Ðìçkš. Whenever they say her name over the announcements, the announcer stumbles and everybody laughs. She’s now known as Nicole Ðìçkš(in her pants).
My favorite encounter with an odd name occurred at a recent job, when I told a new customer that her information packet would be filed by her (hyphenated) last name. I forget exactly what led to it, but she noted, “You should remember me from now on. How many Green-Johnsons have you seen?”
It took every ounce of willpower I had to answer that question without making a rude comment. Somehow, I don’t think she realized the joke potential of her name.
My art school roommate’s last name was (and still is) Keller. He had a crush on a girl living on our floor. His poor little heart was broken when she burst into our room one day and declared to him, “I can’t marry you! Then my name would be Helen Keller!”
At least SOME folks know how to nip things in the bud.
Probably the all-time world champion for strange names was Ann Bertha Cecelia Diana Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Kate Louisa Maud Nora Ophelia Quince Rebecca Starkey Teresa Ulysis Venus Winifred Xenephon Yetty Zeus Pepper her nickname was Alphabet Pepper.
There was also the 19th century Michigan Governor, Allpheus Felch, who was born in Limerick Maine. There’s a poem in there somewhere.
“Ðìçk Rash.” I kid you not. He had the meanest parents, no?
In high school our Principal’s name was Deichoff. There was a joke around school which no one could prove one way or another that he had a daughter named Tara.
In high school our Principal’s name was Deichoff. There was a joke around school which no one could prove one way or another that he had a daughter named Tara.
My whole life I have been surrounded by strange names. Here’s just two:
I had a very well known golf instructor named Ðìçk Tiddy.
I had a High School friend named Cash Coyne.
But my favorite true story came from a friend who went to sell insurance to a family named Baiter. When he arrived, Henry Baiter introduced his beautiful wife Susan. Henry was about to introduce his son, when my friend (unable to hold it in any longer) interrupted, “Let me guess. This must be Master Baiter!”
Amazingly, he got the sale.
What I wanna know is, anybody famous or just ordinary with the name Richard Head?
Now THAT’S a name worth changing.
Ladies and gentelmen, from NASSCAR I give you ÐÍÇK TRICKEL!!!!
I swear I could not make that up!
Okay….
Ðìçk Mountjoy.
Old-school right-wing crank – Prop 187, anyone? Served 17 years in the California State Assembly, and seven in the State Senate (not my districts, thank God, but close by). Ran for the Senate last year against Feinstein, so we got to see “Ðìçk Mountjoy” signs dotting some of the major roadways in our area.
Bio is here:
Oops, I mean here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Mountjoy
What I wanna know is, anybody famous or just ordinary with the name Richard Head?
Now THAT’S a name worth changing.
Yep. There’s a guy that lives down the block from me with that name. He’s about sixty or so now.
There were also two girls here names Pepsi and Shasta.
I went to school with a kid names Jim Shorts and one named Joe Kerr.
In college I knew a girl named Shandra Lear.
Whilst my first name is pretty sane, my surname is Ducker.
I grew up on a rough UK Council Estate
There’s only so many things it rhymes with.
Oooooh boy did I have fun at school, being the shy, small and very intelligent type as well.
I have a good friend named Holly Wood. It is a decent name in my opinion, but apparently, in high school, most of her classmates thought of it more as “Holly Would.”
I also had a friend in elementary school named Justin Thyme.
I’m a closet reader of PeterDavid.com and rarely post here, but thought I could add to this thread. I worked in Emergency Rooms for over 20 years and the names we saw were just unimaginable at time. The most memorable was a guy named Harry Beever. As in most hospitals we list the last name first, so none of us even caught it until the nurse came to call him from the waiting room. The whole ER full of adults completely lost it.
The other from the hospital was a woman who just recently passed away. Her name was Bunny Hoppe.
I have had other instances in my life. A girl I went to school with named Kandy married the young man who lived across the street from me with the last name of Barr. Kandy Barr. I begged her not to marry him. LOL
Another from my childhood, a friend of my parents in the late 1970s with the last name of Hartz gave birth to a girl they named Kandy. Kandy Hartz. I can remember my Mom saying that it sounded like a stripper.
And last but not least, my own family had a warped sense of humor. My family name is Moss. My Mom wanted to name me Sunny, but my Dad wouldn’t stand for it. I instead got the other most popular name of 1964 – Tammie. Then when my Mom was expecting her youngest they were hoping it would be a boy as they already had two girls. They picked to name the boy after my father and grandfather and call him my grandfather’s nickname. Woody. Woody Moss. My sister and I begged them not to. Luckily the baby was a girl.
Tammie
Y’know, I can’t believe I forgot how my own name has been the butt of lame jokes. I mean, if I had a dime for everyone who sang “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener” to me… well, I still wouldn’t have enough money to come up with a cure for whatever chemical imbalance in the brain is responsible for making people think that they’re funny when they’re not.
Oh, yeah, also, I’m just a Bill on Capitol Hill. In case you’re wondering.
Oh, and I canNOT get enough of hearing people cry out, “Oh, no, Mister Bill!” I’ve never heard THAT before and it gets funnier every time.
My favorite? Some retard in grade school used to taunt me by chanting, “Myers, Myers, pulls down his pants and there are his pliers.” I was six years old and this guy was, like, eight. Even at that tender age I had to wonder why he wasn’t on the bus with all the “special” kids.
Oh, for the politically correct among us… no, the “retard” I referred to was not in any way truly mentally retarded. Ironically, if he had any sort of developmental disability I’d never have called him a “retard.”
I’ve worked with the developmentally disabled in the past and have found that the overwhelming majority of them do better at maximizing the capabilities they possess than the “pliers” kid did… and he had no developmental disabilities to overcome. Go figure.
One of the staff at our local bank was named Candy Cain (not Candace, she assured me … but Candy). I worked with a woman named Marianne who married (what were his parents thinking?) a man named Robin Hood. They had to get an unlisted number.
Regards, The Rev.
Just realized this was a high school question. In one class, we had a Dave Friendly, Joe Darling and Jim Love. They didn’t hang around together and nobody else seemed to find this confluence unusual.
My last name is Black, me ex-wife’s is Mack and one day, we were standing around in an art gallery speaking to an artist named Stephan Lack. When I pointed out that oddity, he immediately dubbed us Mack Lack Black and insisted on telling everyone we met about it. Someday, I’ll learn to keep my mouth shut … probably about a month or so after my death.
Regards, The Rev.
I can remember my Mom saying that it sounded like a stripper.
That sounds like the next one of these threads PAD should have: people with pørņ names. 🙂
I’m not sure this counts but..in the school i teach in there is a large hispaniac population …well several years ago there was just an many students with the last name of Cruz…well you know that those of us in the boston area sometimes have our own way of pronuncing words,and Anita is one of those… well any time this student was called to the office over the intercom, it always came out “Ineeda Cruz ” there was not one teacher in the building that couldn’t help adding “any cruz would do
I once knew a woman named “Linday” who was engaged to man with the last name “Doyle”. Neither one of them made the “linseed oil” conection until I pointed it out.
Once more I’ll tell the story of a friend who once manned the intercom at a local business and always dreaded having to page one “Harry Members.”
The first time, he amended it to “Harold” in the page to spare both himself and Mr. Members embarrassment — only to have an incensed Mr. Members loudly declaim, “Do NOT call me Harold! I’m Harry! HARRY MEMBERS!!!”
Sheesh. I’m also easily amused at any doctor named Paine or Payne, especially a dentist.
I just thought of another one… and she was sitting next to me when I typed my first post.
My Mother-In-Law’s first and middle name, separately, no big deal. First is Mary. Middle is Annette. Nothing unusual, until you say them out loud, together. Mary Annette.
My best friend just died when he finally put it together.
My father reports that there are two chiropractors in his town named Dr. Pull and Dr. Bend.
The day I left high school (last day of 10th grade), I dropped the nickname “Barney” everywhere outside my immediate family and a few very close friends who’ve known me since childhood. I had quite enough of Rubble, Miller, Fife, etc. for 10 years. (Thank God neither The Simpsons nor that accursed purple dinosaur were around yet.)
But the most staggering bad taste I’ve seen has been directed at one of my best friends. His last name is McVey. No relation – it’s not even spelled the same, fer chrissakes – but otherwise rational adults seem to think jokes about bombings are amusing…and are somehow surprised when they get a response as sharp and cold as a refrigerated Gem blade.