Isn’t that a wonderful name? Wouldn’t you vote for him solely on the strength of his name? I was databasing some photos today at work and encountered one of “the residence of Cadwallader C. Washburn, governor of the state of Wisconsin.”
He is now my second-favorite real-person name, right after Chauncey DePew.
Who’s yours?
On the old Carol Burnett show, an audience member raised her hand and said her name was “Priscilla Celery”, which name CB said she loved.
I once read a legal seminar brochure, which said the course was being taught by “Professor P. Dicky Yip”. The name cracks me up to this day.
Goddam if Mr. Peter Dicky Yip, Bank of Communications, Executive Vice President, doesn’t actually exist! (scroll down)
Eve, Dear old Cadwallader barely scratches the surface of the illustrious Washburn Family of the Great State of Maine*. Politicians, Grain Barons (in a state which produces no grain, by the by!), for a while there the Washburn clan held the strings that made a young United States of America twitch. There’d have been early appeasement, a divided country, no Ulysses Simpson Grant and another century of slavery were it not for these guys. For half a hundred years, they were the Kennedys, with a little more achievement and with none of the scandal. They were also, according to the family portraits, uniformly ugly (even from the palette of guys getting paid to make them look good, and they hung the potraits anyway.
Anyhow, my personal choice in the “favorite name ever encountered” category was a Hungarian-born soldier named Laszlo Apathy. He comes in just ahead of the Korean businessman named Kil Yoo.
*Since early party conventions, this is the only way to refer to the place.
Sir Walter Raleigh had a cousin named Butshead Gorges who accompanied him on his voyage to Guyana. (I’ve always wondered if his real reason for signing on was that he wanted to get as far away from the English-speaking world as possible.)
Oh! I just remembered Broadway press agent A. Toxen Worm, referenced in this link.
And our returning champion, Aiken County Sheriff Mike Hunt.
He’s even got an Astronomical Observatory named after him:
General William Turnipseed also has an outstanding name.
Are you familiar with the old Monkees song D.W. Washjburn. Sort of an old English Music Hall sort of tune, very reminiscent of “Winchester Cathedral.”
Back in the Dark Ages when I was a wee tad, there was a local children’s television show called “Daddy Din.” Much later I found out that the man’s name was Din. Short for Dinwiddie. Furmeister. Junior. (I suppose that having such a name in the first place might derange a man to the point that he would pass it on to his firstborn son.) The name has held a high place in my personal pantheon ever since.
Priscilla later got beaten out by one Theresa Renturia (accent on penultimate) which Carol liked even better.
Anyway, better Washburn County than Cadwallader County.
Hiram English Spode’s name to me evokes images of professorial grandeur, of Amazonian conquests in soiled yet immaculately pressed khakis, and of regaled adventures back at the club among an envious collection of peers.
But he pretty much was just the snot nosed kid next door.
One of our customer’s surnames is “Stiffend.” I’d pay extra to have a name like that. “Fightmaster” is pretty cool, too.
There was also a very well-known astonomer named Harlow Shapely. I’ll bet he got lots of jokes during the 1930s.
Rumour has it that the next governor of Texas is going to be Kinky.
In our local paper the other week, there was the story of three teenage boys who had walked 700 miles for charity.
Their names were Ranulf Neame, Laurie Leroux-Cudlip (both rather good names in themselves) and my current favourite name - Harry Scoggin Beer.
I would love to be called Harry Scoggin Beer. And I’m female.