# You couldn't make this stuff up! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 13, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340 "2011-06-13T18:54:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/21 "2011-06-15T18:11:41Z")
This has been brought up recently in another thread, but there is, of course, the current Oakland A’s relief pitcher named **Grant Balfour**. During his first stint in the majors back in 2001, he gave up three walks in only 2.2 innings. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/22 "2011-06-15T18:18:57Z")
On a somewhat less-impressive note, I was married in the town of Harmony, but the marriage didn’t exactly end that way. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/23 "2011-06-15T20:27:15Z")
The entomology professor at my college was Dr. Bugbee. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/24 "2011-06-15T20:45:28Z")
A nurse whose name was Amanda Nurse. If ever there’s a profession I would steer clear of, it would be the one in my surname. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/25 "2011-06-15T21:41:09Z")
> [@Ronald\_C.Semone](#): > > You would probably think it was stretching things a bit for an author to name a congressman who sent pictures of his crotch to women “Congressman Wiener”. But it happened. I’m always amused by the fact that Bernie Madoff made off with all that money. But that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/26 "2011-06-15T21:50:32Z")
At my airline we have a now-retired Captain whose last name was “Pilot”. In the Air Force I knew both a Major Major and a Major Minor. ---
**Author:** ![drpepper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@drpepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drpepper)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/27 "2011-06-16T02:54:08Z")
> [@freckafree](#): > > My fencing instructor in college was Mrs. Pearce. And she drove a Buick LeSabre. Nice. I like this one. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/28 "2011-06-16T03:06:06Z")
there really is a doctor whose last name is Seuss. and yes, she’s a pediatrician. And yes, her waiting room is full of books by…Dr Seuss ---
**Author:** ![keturah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e95f7d/32.png) [@keturah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/keturah)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/29 "2011-06-16T03:25:15Z")
I had an ER visit due to a fall where my elbow went through the glass half of my coffee table causing a pretty big cut in my hand. My ER doctors name? Dr. Glass. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/30 "2011-06-16T03:30:03Z")
I once read a genetics paper by a fellow named Gene Finder. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/31 "2011-06-16T03:43:58Z")
How about [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=612628), from right here on the Straight Dope? ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/32 "2011-06-16T04:03:29Z")
I believe this is called “nominative determinism”. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/33 "2011-06-16T06:23:08Z")
I once went to a proctologist called Dr Killingback. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/34 "2011-06-16T08:56:00Z")
Not as good as some of the above, but when I was 12 I had an English teacher called Mr Vowler. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2011, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/35 "2011-06-16T11:19:03Z")
Bill Lear, inventor of the car radio, 8 track player, and corporate jet plane developer, named his daughter Shanda. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/36 "2011-06-20T14:12:54Z")
> [@Ronald\_C.Semone](#): > > Sometimes life presents us with things that are so appropos that you know they are true because noone would make them up. > > You would probably think it was stretching things a bit for an author to name a congressman who sent pictures of his crotch to women “Congressman Wiener”. But it happened. > > Many years ago the archaeologist who discovered the long-lost statue of Aphrodite, the Greek god of love, was named Iris Love. > > What other examples of actual events that “you couldn’t make up because noone would believe it” can you cite? [What are the odds that _another_ person anmed Weiner would make the news the next day?](http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/long_island&id=8199434) > [@](#): > > A family of three and a teenage friend headed for a lunchtime getaway by the ocean were the victims of a fiery weekend plane crash, authorities said Sunday. > The victims aboard the Cessna 210 that went down Saturday near the Westchester County Airport were identified as Keith Weiner, the 63-year-old pilot; his wife, Lisa Weiner, 51; their daughter Isabel, 14; and her friend, Lucy Walsh, 14, according to Farrell Sklerov, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. The anchors delivering that news story were going crazy trying to look somber and not comment on the name of the poor victims. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/37 "2011-06-20T17:30:16Z")
The Bobbitts: > **[John and Lorena Bobbitt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Lorena_Bobbitt)** > > John Wayne Bobbitt (born 1967) and Lorena Bobbitt (née Gallo; born 1969 or 1970) are an American former couple married on June 18, 1989, whose relationship received international press coverage in 1993 when Lorena severed John's penis with a food knife while he was asleep in bed; the penis was successfully surgically reattached. Lorena, an Ecuadorian immigrant and the primary breadwinner, claimed that her husband John, a bar bouncer and former U.S. Marine, had raped and abused The incident i... ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/38 "2011-06-20T17:41:58Z")
I used to know a guy whose last name is Ferris. He owns a bicycle shop called Ferris Wheels. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/39 "2011-06-20T18:03:52Z")
Richard Justis. Head boss at the Dept. of Justice (Antitrust div.) ---
**Author:** ![feppytweed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/feppytweed/32/4280_2.png) [@feppytweed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/feppytweed)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340/40 "2011-06-20T18:14:35Z")
> [@cjepson](#): > > Couldn’t they have come up with a more imaginative name than “de Gaulle” for the guy who led the Free French during WWII? Am I missing something? Are you thinking of de Guerre? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-couldnt-make-this-stuff-up/585340.md?page=3)