wickedflea | more name thoughts

I used to work with a kid who called me Fleabasket instead of Flea or Wicked Flea. I never figured out why. But now that I think of it, his legal name was Alsando but he went by Alonzo--so maybe in his mind names were made to be altered.

Also working there was a woman whose mother tried to name her Barbara--but the midwife or whoever filled out the birth certificate didn't like that name, so she put down Debra on the form. So every year in school the poor girl would have to explain to her teacher that no matter what the roll said, her name was Barbara, not Debra. Good old Barbaradebra.

Then there was Hashim, who moved to this country from Saudi Arabia only to have his forms filled out wrong, so that his legal name in this country was Hisham, not Hashim. But he only told his co-workers that several months after he started working there, so of course everyone still called him Hisham. Finally, when he became a U.S. citizen, he changed his name--to Steve. Steve Saker. Naturally I called him Stove.

Come to think of it, my Mom's name was sort of screwed up. I think my grandparents wanted her middle name to be Carla, after her father's name, Carl. But somehow the birth certificate got messed up and her middle name ended up being Coral--which I actually kind of like.

My parents considered naming me Christian, after one of my paternal grandfather's names. (He was Danish and had about six, I think.) But I think my Dad thought it sounded kinda sissy, and I ended up Christopher. Which is a pretty good name, but a little too common. Christian would have been pretty cool, except that it might have been a little weird for an avowed heathen like me. The worst thing about Christopher is that it's too goddamn long. I'm always getting mail addressed to "Christophe," which would be fine if I were French, but I'm not.

As a reward for getting to the end of this pointless post, I present you with perhaps the best name I've ever run across: Passion Savage. Passion was another co-worker back in the day. Passion Savage. Sounds like she should be one of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Or a porno star. And if you turn her name around, it sounds like a porno movie. Savage Passion.

I swear on my Misfits box set that I'm making none of this up.