Signature Style

In the 1940s, newspaper columnist E.V. Durling founded the My-Name-Is-A-Poem Club. Members included:

  • Hugh Blue, president
  • Jesse Lesse, Boston
  • Merry Berry, Chicago
  • Max Wax, Chicago
  • Hollie Jolley, San Bernardino, Calif.
  • Della Stella Serritella, Chicago
  • Jane Cane, Wheaton, Ill.
  • Newton Hooton, Cambridge, Mass.
  • Kenny Tenny and his daughter Penny, San Francisco
  • Dick Vick and his son Dick Jr., San Diego
  • Trudy Moody, Newburgh, N.Y.

Durling said his favorites were Nancy Clancy and Truly Dooley.

Here are a few more odd personal names, these from Elsdon Coles Smith’s Treasury of Name Lore (1967), “all names of real persons”:

  • Original Bug
  • Ephraim Very Ott
  • Gladys Whysoglad
  • Park A. Carr
  • Fairy Duck
  • Vito d’Incognito
  • North Western
  • Napoleon N. Waterloo
  • Tressanela Noosepickle
  • Osbel Irizarry
  • Athelstan Spilhaus
  • Weikko Tinklepaugh
  • Twilladeen Hubkapiller

According to Smith, Canadian broadcaster Clyde Gilmour founded the Society for the Verification and Enjoyment of Fascinating Names of Actual Persons (SVEFNAP) while working for the Toronto Telegraph. Gilmour died in 1997, though, I think, and I can’t find any record that the society survived. If you know otherwise, please let me know.