Today I had a call where I had to get Cecil Adams a mouse. I was initially freaked out, but turns out to be (as you expected) a coincidence. I have also had service calls to George Burns (after the famous one was dead), John Glenn (I always referred to him as “The Senator”), Gene Simmons (was a 25 year old black man in better physical shape than the rock star), had a call from John Galt (Ayn Rand book character), Phat Ho (just a silly name really), and some guy called David Berkowitz (probably not the psycho one) while working phones in a computer reseller. Anyone else have any weird name coincidence stories?
Oh, and I went to a college that the library was named after someone with the same first and last name as me. The librarians were unsurprised. The -really- odd bit is that a friend of mine (she was -so- cute) dated someone with the same first name as me, and the same last name as the middle name of the same library. It was odd.
My favorite name that a normal person had was my fourth-grade boyfriend, Max Ford.
Ah, Max.
Max Ford sounds like a legendary spy name.
I also went to school with a Mike Wallace and a Michele Lee, both in the same class. The teacher made a joke of this but most of us were too young to get it at the time.
Oh yes, and my ninth-grade history teacher was Mr. Napolean. we all thought that was funny.
In my sixth-grade yearbook, from many years ago, two of my classmates are named “Granger Farley,” which is actually pretty funny, and I swear by all that is holy, “Elvis Presley.”
I teach school and have had lots of movie stars in my classes:
Courtney Cox, Kristen Johnston, 3 Michael Fox’s, Grace Kelly, Meg Ryan, 2 Elizabeth Taylor’s (both called Beth), and Michael Douglas.
Among the odd names are Holly Berry (brother was Gary Berry, mom was Kerry Berry, dad was Jerry Berry…guess they though it was cute…I dunno…), Jim Dandy, Fritzi, Herman, Strattonly, H.B., and Hamilton (called Hammy), and lots of Mariah’s and Shania’s lately.
I used to work with a Kitty Kelly (wrote the trashy Reagan bio), a Grace Kelly, and a John Denver.
I used to work with a woman named Priscilla who married a man whose last name was…you guessed it… Presley. Dr. Priscilla Presley PhD. We never could keep a name plate on her door. All the students kept stealing it. She finally just wrote it on paper and taped it to the door.
There is a girl who used to go to our school named Dusty House. And when I student taught, I had a student named Sylvester. His twin’s name? Lylvester. We also have a Summer Winters. When she was in kindergarten, she wasn’t sure which name was her first. Neither were we.
My poor brother was named Richard, nicknamed Ricky, Nelson. The famous Ricky Nelson was just a few years older than my brother, so when my parents named Rick they had never heard of the TV and singing star.
The poor guy had to put up with people asking him where he was hiding his guitar for years.
I recall a guy in BC named Clifford Olson. When Clifford Olson, the serial killer, was charged, he called his mother and said, “Mom, I’m changing my name.” She said, “Son, I’ll pay for it.”
I know someone named Paul Newman. When he was born, the actor was just starting out and my friend’s parents didn’t think the actor was going to amount to much.