But is there a Ms. Chanandler Bong?
Zaphod Beeblebrox?
Unless you count the real life people in Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter as characters, Susan Atkins’s (Sadie Mae Glutz’s) child Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz can’t be a real contender in this thread.
On the other hand, I wonder how that child (born late 60’s) has made out in this life away from “the family.” I can’t remember any news items concerning him, nor have I seen his name in the credits for any movies or TV shows. Maybe he’s in higher learning or maybe he went into medicine. Or runs a Roto Rooter route.
Quien sabe?
Ima.
Well, there may very well be a Rufus T. Firefly in the phone book, but…
I know a pair of morning disc jockeys whose home phone numbers are listed in the phone book as Randle P. McMurphy (yeah, Jack Nicholson’s character in “Cuckoo’s Nest”) and Hrundi Bakshi (Peter Sellers’ hapless Indian character in “The Party”).
So, I’d say it’s far more likely that the “Rufus T. Firefly” in the phone book is a Groucho fan who obtained a phone under that name as a joke than that someone actually has that name.
Among the most unlikely names I can think of:
MARION COBRETTI: I’m almost positive that Sylvester Stallone wanted to call his character “Cobra,” and then made up an Italian-sounding family name to justify the nickname.
How about some from the novels of Thomas Pynchon:
Benny Profane
Herbert Stencil
Oedipa Maas
Pierce Inverarity
Mike Fallopian
Genghis Cohen
Tyrone Slothrop
Roger Mexico
Jessica Swanlake
Teddy Bloat
Geli Tripping
Tantivy Mucker-Maffick
Scorpia Mossmoon
Ernest Pudding
My hometown phonebook had a listing for Trombone, TJ.
I didn’t think there’d be a Thomas Covenant, but there is exactly one listed at Switchboard, and while there’s no Linden Avery, there are many “L” Averys so maybe one of them actually is a Linden…
No Saltheart Foamfollowers, though, oddly enough.
Anastsia Beaverhausen
Regina Phelangie
There is a real person called Yahoo Serious – born with the more mundane name of Greg Pead. Some years ago, I checked and he wasn’t in the phone book, but I did find him and his wife under the surname “Serious” in the Australian electoral roll.
Phone companies don’t care if people are listed by their real name or not. Whitepages.com lists five Luke Skywalkers and one Annikan.
I would imagine there are few Ignatius J. Reillys, although it was used as a name for a hypothetical in my Contracts book (which seems to have a very literary sense of humor for things like that).
Reilly was selling land to Myrna Minkoff (snort) with an oral contract. For shame…
I would guess pretty much anyone with the last name Hitler would not care to go by it publicly.
Well when I was stationed in Germany I did look. No luck.
“That’s Hilter!”
Not to mention Martin Chuzzlewit.
Apparently, Hitler’s bloodline is still out there, except they have (obviously) changed their surname, presumably to Stewart-Houston (after a British author who had many of the same race beliefs as Hitler). There are some people out there unrelated with the Hitler last name, and I believe I read that at there’s at least one Adolf Hitler living today.
I was aware of that. Though I don’t remember the Dope article I do remember reading an article a few years ago, probably in the New Yorker.
What’s weird about that one? Geller is a common name. You’ve got two of them right here on the boards. Allegra is an unusual name, but I’ve personally met two Allegras.
I don’t think “Allegra Geller” is particularly euphonious, what with all the hard g’s and double l’s and such, but it’s hardly up there with Mike Fallopian.
You need to dig deeper into your literature. Charles Dickensd used to make up names all the time that you’d have a hard time locating.
From Wikipedia:
Chuzzlewit? Scrooge? Fezziwig? Run through his novels and you’ll find a few real names, but Dickens seemed to love coming up with weird English surnames.
From this site:
http://www.fidnet.com/~dap1955/dickens/characters.html
Interesting directory to his characters.