By Charles Layton
My grandson plays on a hockey team called the Glaciers.
I love my grandson, and I love his team (Go, Glaciers!), but why would you name a hockey team after a natural feature that symbolizes extreme slowness? Would you name a team the Snails? The Sloths? The Drying Paint? I liked the name of his previous team. It was called the Blazers.
Here in Ocean Grove we have what strikes me as another example of an ill-advised name: The Albatross Hotel. Now an albatross is a large seabird which was feared as a bad omen by sailors of old. You didn’t dare kill one; it could bring down disaster upon your entire ship and crew, as happened in Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Someone plagued with bad luck was said to have “an albatross around his neck.”
One of the worst names I ever encountered was in Ecuador. Mary and I once took a flight from the national capital, Quito, to the little Amazon jungle town of Coca, and the airline we flew on was called Icaro. That name, Icaro, is the Spanish rendering of Icarus, a young man in ancient mythology whose father built him a set of wings made from feathers stuck together with wax. When Icarus took to the sky, he ignored his father’s warning and flew too close to the sun. The sun’s heat melted the wax, the wings disintegrated, and Icarus fell into the sea and drowned.
So if you owned an airline, would you name it after Icarus? I wouldn’t.
People on the American frontier had a tendency to give odd and laughable names to small towns. Tightwad, Missouri. Bug Tussle, Oklahoma. Spunky Puddle, Ohio. Possumneck, Mississippi. Hell, Michigan.
One wonders what life is like in Hell, Michigan. Is the road to Hell paved with good intentions? Are the people there Hellions? Does Hell ever freeze over? (I bet it does.) Do the residents of Hell get sick and tired of hearing the same old wisecracks? (I bet they do.)
How do town founders decide on such names? Alcohol might play a part. One thing is for sure, if Bug Tussle had ever had dreams of blossoming into a major metropolis, hosting the Olympic Games or becoming the capital of the state of Oklahoma, those dreams went right out the window as soon as it acquired its name.
Some people acquire or give themselves nicknames that are funny. The actors Slim Pickens and Rip Torn come to mind. I don’t think those pun names hurt either of their careers.
The amazing thing, though, is that, cruel as it seems, people actually do give their children joke names. Texas had a governor in the late 19th century named James Stephen “Big Jim” Hogg, who named his daughter Ima Hogg. Ima was still around when I was young. In fact, her name was a joke among children all across Texas. We were told that Governor Hogg had had two daughters, Ima Hogg and Ura Hogg. Only recently did I discover that Ura Hogg was fictitious.
But Ima Hogg was for real. She was a pillar of Texas society and quite wealthy after oil was discovered on her property. She became a philanthropist and a noted art collector who donated hundreds of works (Picasso, Klee, Matisse) to Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts. She also established and managed the Houston Symphony Orchestra. She worked for equality for women, for the advancement of African-Americans and much, much more. She was hell on wheels, and you have to wonder whether living with that name helped drive her to such heights of achievement.
Ima Hogg died in 1975, much beloved and respected as “The First Lady of Texas.”
So, as Shakespeare said, what’s in a name?
When my son was a kid, he played soccer. His team was sponsored by the Foley Funeral Home. On their uniforms it said, “Foley Fun Home.”
When I was growing up, my mother ran her own babysitting business, and one of the little girls in her care was named Candy Kiss. As an eight year old, I thought this name was really “sweet.” What were her parents thinking?! Can’t blame drugs; this was back in the 50’s!
Parents can be cruel. Went to college with Rusty Tulle (tool). Actual name on his birth certificate. Even had red hair!