Meanwhile, on the putting green, neighbors named John and Bob and Bill were practicing their strokes.
Suddenly, looking around, it dawned on me that the old simple names that identified members of my generation were being replaced.
Reading a newspaper or magazine, glancing at a name tag of a server at the restaurant or the check-out clerk in the superstore, or simply getting introduced to a younger person makes it clear that some names today really were dug up from some dungeon.
Just think of the names popular today: Todd and Courtney and Jarrell. How about Malcolm or Chad or Randy?
And these are the tamer names in the hopper!
Remember the days of the old schoolyard brawls, when the mean kids would rumble with the nice guys?
Just who would you put your money on if Joe and Johnny and Mike were going to take on Todd and Chad and Randy? That’s a no-brainer.
One village resident, when asked his opinion on the monikers of the modern world, cited some examples of the extreme.
He listed Rodney (probably named after that Dangerfield man), Swanson (thought that was a frozen dinner), Brandon and Daryl as names he has come across in the Sandhills.
“But,” he said, “Gawain and Radnor have crossed my path as well.”
The new weird-name phenomenon is not limited to male identifiers. Females have even more bizarre first names in this 21st century.
You can come across a Reba and a Barbee and a Libby without turning a page in the phone book. You might well be introduced to Aalicia or Basha or Innanna.
The next young lady to wait on you at the eating establishment could say: “My name is Nersy (or Rayleigh or Callifae), and I will be your server tonight.“
(When that happens, I immediately get concerned, not sure whether Nersy or Callifae know the difference between an entree and an antipasto.)
Another Whispering Pines resident who wanted to weigh in on the subject stressed that things have gotten so bad, it is hard to determine by a person’s name whether it refers to a male or a female.
The villager (named Peter) suggested this test: Which of the following identifies a male — Shanley, Windsor, Lavery or Fallon?
Hard to figure, isn’t it? (You were right if you picked Shanley and Lavery as the guys and Windsor and Fallon as the gals, according to the Baby Name Center.)
Naming a child in years past was a simple process. You either named him or her after someone in the family or you chose one of a dozen or so names and that was that.
In my small town in Massachusetts you could count on plenty of friends named Joe and Mary. They would be complimented by a John or Bill or Bob and a Betty or Nancy or Jane.
This isn‘t to say there were no unusual names in our heyday.
I remember one co-student in my high school who caused everyone to wonder about him because his first name was R.V.
The initials stood for nothing at all so, as teens who thought they knew it all, we concluded his folks simply were frugal country folks who never minced their words.
Since the community in New England had a significant Polish population, we had many Stanleys and Stacias in our midst. (Being Polish-American myself, I wanted to name our first-born Stanley but was quickly overruled by another member of this household.)
In that environment, the first name was never a problem. but coupling it with our ethnic last names did produce some tongue-twisters.
For instance, when Stanley Szufnarowski wanted to play with Casimir Kwaszniczki or Stella Gwodz wanted to sleep over at Honorata Olendrowicz’s house, simply asking permission from their parents was an effort. Getting the names out was harder to do than getting an OK.
In Whispering Pines, there are a few unusuals where names are concerned. Fred Sidders is the Mrs. in the Sidders family, while Jim is the Mr.
Stafford Thornton has to put up with being called Thornton by his friends who mix up his first and last names. (Thank goodness his wife, Jo, makes it easier to remember who is who in the family, especially if you are old enough to remember the female vocalist named Jo Stafford. She is Jo and he is Stafford!!)
But overall, the village replicates most areas that have a mature population. It is inhabited by plenty of Joes and Janes and Jims and will let the rest of the world deal with the Winters and Kanishas of 2003.
At least till the next time one of us goes to a restaurant and spots the name tag that reads “Makenna.“
Don Winslow writes about life in Whispering Pines. He may be e-mailed at don-win@charter.net.
