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Roll Call

Unusual names of real people, collected by author John Train:

  • A.A.A. D’Artagnan Umslopagaas Dynamite Macaulay
  • Arizona Zipper
  • Atomic Zagnut Adams
  • Badman Trouble
  • Bumpus McPhumpus Angeledes
  • Cardiac Arrest da Silva
  • Cashmere Tango Obedience
  • Charles Everybodytalksabout, Jr.
  • C. Sharp Minor
  • Demetrius Toodles
  • Dennis Elbow
  • E. Pluribus Eubanks
  • Fortunate Tarte
  • Henry Will Burst
  • Pepsi Cola Atom-Bomb Washington
  • Marmalade P. Vestibule
  • Rebecca Hammering Bang
  • Roosevelt Cabbagestalk
  • Sara Struggles Nicely
  • Serious Misconduct
  • Trailing Arbutus Vines
  • Warren Peace
  • Zip A-Dee-Doo Daub

Twins: Anarchy and Utopia; A.C. and D.C.; Bigamy and Larceny; Pete and Repeat

Further odd names, collected from various sources.

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Roll Call

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dennis_Hart_Mahan_(West_Point_professor).jpg

More than 500 of the commanders in the American Civil War were West Point graduates, and all but a handful of these studied under the same military theorist, Dennis Hart Mahan, whose course “Engineering and the Science of War” applied the lesson of Napoleon’s campaigns — that the key to success was rapid maneuver to concentrate one’s forces at a critical point of weakness in the enemy position. (Of Grant’s encirclement of Vicksburg, Mahan said, “European warfare can produce nothing equal to it since the 1st Napoleon.”)

In addition to Grant, Mahan’s pupils included William Tecumseh Sherman, George Meade, George B. McClellan, Henry Halleck, George Henry Thomas, John Sedgwick, Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and Philip Sheridan among the Union forces and Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, Albert Sidney Johnston, P.G.T. Beauregard, John Bell Hood, Richard S. Ewell, J.E.B. Stewart, and William J. Hardee in the Confederacy. Historian James Robertson called him “the guru of the generals.”

(James Robertson, The Untold Civil War, 2011.)

| History

Roll Call

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_mounted_soldier_is_watching_the_roll-call_of_his_soldiers._Wellcome_V0048284.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

A problem from the 2002 Moscow Mathematical Olympiad:

A group of recruits stand in a line facing their corporal. They are, unfortunately, rather poorly trained: At the command “Left turn!”, some of them turn left, some turn right, and some turn to face away from the corporal. Is it always possible for the corporal to insert himself in the line so that an equal number of recruits are facing him on his left and on his right?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

Roll Call

In 1938, University of North Carolina folklorist Arthur Palmer Hudson published a collection of unusual African-American names, most gathered through personal interviews but others “unimpeachably attested” by state bureaus of vital statistics:

  • Comer Mercantile Company
  • Castor Oil
  • Morphine
  • Dr. Root Beer
  • Oleomargarine
  • Artificial Flowers
  • Elevator
  • Dill Pickle
  • League of Nations
  • Toledo Ohio
  • Positive Wasserman (after a hospital wrist tag)
  • Jesus Hoover Christ (“the family was a beneficiary of the Red Cross when Hoover was director”)
  • Jesse James Outlaw
  • James All Virtuous
  • Sandy Alexander Soap Fish and Tobacco Box
  • Susan Anna Banana Green Doosenberry Watson
  • Rosa Belle Locust Hill North Carolina Beauty Spot Evans
  • Frank Harrison President of the United States Eats His Lasses Candy and Swings on Every Gate Williams
  • Pneumonia and Neuralgia (twins)
  • Flat Foot Floogie
  • State Normal and Industrial College (“Snic”)
  • No Parking
  • Lake Erie Banks
  • Cleopatra Blue

In the 1850s, a Stanly County, N.C., slave was named Sunday May Ninth “to guarantee the bearer’s remembrance of his birthday.” “This name proved useful to the ex-slave in establishing his status with reference to a monetary claim.”

Hudson seems to have been enchanted by unusual names generally — among the UNC alumni he found a white student named Shively Dewilder Accus Baccus Dulcido.

(Arthur Palmer Hudson, “Some Curious Negro Names,” Southern Folklore Quarterly 2:4, December 1938, pp. 179-193.)

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Roll Call

Yet more unusual names of real people. Most of these are from the collection of Leland Hilligoss of the St. Louis Public Library, via Paul Dickson, A Collector’s Compendium of Rare and Unusual, Bold and Beautiful, Odd and Whimsical Names (1986). “As far as can be determined, all of the names are real and almost all were collected in North America and the British Isles”:

  • Magdalena Babblejack
  • Phoebe B. Peabody Beebe
  • Sibyl Bibble
  • Christian Bible
  • Hiawatha Cathcart
  • Tensil Cheesebrew
  • Adeline Dingledine
  • W. French Dingler
  • Ed Ek
  • JoAnn Floozbonger
  • E. Vercel Fuglestad
  • Cashmere Funkhouser
  • L.E. Vontilzer Gleaves
  • Felty Goosehead
  • Icy Macy Hoober
  • Zola G. Hooberry
  • Square Horn Jr.
  • Birdie T. Hospital
  • Elizabeth Hogg Ironmonger
  • Mingtoy Johnson
  • Epluribus Kitchen
  • Varnard P. Longhibler
  • Channing Manning
  • Duel Maroon
  • Luch V. Moga
  • Otis Muckenfuss
  • Lester Ouchmoody
  • Loveless Pelt
  • Grace Pinkapank
  • Evangelist Polite
  • Curt Puke
  • Burger Rocket
  • Melon Roof
  • Goolsby Scroggins
  • Norval Sleed
  • Craven Tart
  • Eloise Tittlekitty
  • Kong Vang
  • Gwendolyne Winklepleck
  • Clifteen Wooters
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Roll Call

More unusual personal names:

From John Train’s Remarkable Names of Real People (1988):

  • Ave Maria Klinkenberg
  • Gaston J. Feeblebunny
  • Humperdink Fangboner
  • Larry Derryberry
  • Mary Louise Pantzaroff
  • Norman Icenoggle
  • Primrose Goo
  • Rapid Integration
  • Verbal Funderburk

From Barbara Fletcher’s Don’t Blame the Stork (1981):

  • Bobo Yawn
  • Louise Ghostkeeper
  • Constance Stench
  • Naughtybird Curtsey
  • Rat Soup
  • Sir Dingle Foot
  • Consider Arms
  • Craspius Pounders
  • Gizella Werberzerk-Piffel
  • Barbara Savage Machinest

The most impressive specimens come from H.L. Mencken’s magisterial American Language. In 1901 Loyal Lodge No. 296 Knights of Pythias Ponca City Oklahoma Territory Smith was baptized in Ponca City, and in 1949 John Hodge Opera House Centennial Gargling Oil Samuel J. Tilden Ten Brink was interviewed for the Linguistic Atlas in upstate New York. I don’t know what he said.

| Language · Oddities

Roll Call

The taking of the United States census, now nearly completed, has brought to light some curious specimens of given names. A man in Illinois has five children, who have been christened Imprimis, Finis, Appendix, Addendum, and Erratum. In Smythe County, Virginia, a Mr. Elmadoras Sprinkle has called his two sons Myrtle Ellmore and Onyx Curwen, and his six daughters Memphis Tappan, Empress Vandalia, Tatnia Zain, Okeno Molette, Og Wilt, and Wintosse Emmah. The great number of persons surnamed Sprinkle in that county is given as the excuse for these extraordinary names.

— Notes and Queries, Dec. 10, 1870

| Oddities

Roll Call

In November 2006, 23-year-old David Fearn of Staffordshire changed his name to James Dr. No From Russia With Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live and Let Die The Man With the Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View to a Kill The Living Daylights Licence to Kill GoldenEye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond.

It’s the longest name in deed poll history.

| Entertainment

Roll Call

A pangrammatic anagrammatic verse composed by Edwin Fitzpatrick — each line contains each of the 20 consonants once and each of the six vowels twice:

Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp,
Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr’s gawky vice?
Guy fed by work, quiz Jove’s xanthic lamp —
Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice.

And it rhymes!

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Podcast Episode 199: The Mystery of the Carroll A. Deering

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deering2.jpg

In 1921 a schooner ran aground on the treacherous shoals off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. When rescuers climbed aboard, they found signs of a strange drama in the ship’s last moments — and no trace of the 11-man crew. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll examine the curious case of the Carroll A. Deering, which has been called “one of the enduring mysteries of maritime history.”

We’ll also experiment with yellow fever and puzzle over a disputed time of death.

See full show notes …

| History · Oddities · Podcast