Be Amazing
Be Amazing: Change Your Name
by Be Amazing - March 11, 2009 - 12:00 PM

Whether you’re looking to start your own religion, swallow a sword, quit smoking, find Atlantis, buy the Moon, sink a battleship, perform your own surgeries, or become a ninja, our new book Be Amazing covers all the essential life skills! This week, we’ll be excerpting a few lessons from the book.

So you’ve finally decided that you no longer want to go through life burdened by the horrible name your parents gave you. Great! But you’re still going to have to explain that decision to dear old Mom and Dad. And, unless you really like awkward family holidays, it’s best you have an excuse other than, “You guys suck!” In the interest of your continued familial bliss, we provide the following controversy-free reasons for your moniker switch:

BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT’S MAKING YOU

prince.jpgNaming your baby Brooklynn, America, or Lindsee might be acceptable (if mockable) in the good ol’ U.S. of A., but don’t try a stunt like that in Denmark. Of all the European laws regulating baby names, Denmark’s are the strictest. Danish parents must choose from a state-approved list of 7,000 names, which seems like a lot, until you fall in love with a name that isn’t on there. And bucking the system means months of slogging through a bureaucratic process to get your chosen moniker individually approved by the Names Investigation Department and the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs. Each year, the organizations reject 15 to 20 percent of the names they review—all in the, well, “name” of protecting the baby’s dignity.

BECAUSE YOU AREN’T AS RELIGIOUS AS YOUR PARENTS

Forget the hippies, the award for #1 crazy-baby-name subculture absolutely has to go to the Puritans. Well known for burning eccentric neighbors, forcing adulterers to wear colorful letterman jackets, and condemning the concept of “fun” in general, Puritan culture was basically a big ball of repressed wackiness looking for an outlet. Thus, did little Silence, Humiliation, and Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin (i.e. the writing on the wall from the Book of Daniel) pay the price for their parents’ self-flagellation. Some, however, later rebelled. Sometime before 1660, a preacher’s son-turned-doctor changed his name from Hath Christ Not Died For Thee Thou Wouldst Be Damned Barebone to the more sensible Nicholas Barbon.

FOR THE SAKE OF A LITTLE PUBLICITY

Between 1965 and 1979, San Francisco painting contractor Bill Holland changed his name no fewer than three times. But Holland’s odyssey wasn’t part of some New Age attempt to find himself. Rather, according to the brief write-up Holland warranted inTimemagazine, his capricious name-hopping was a purely Capitalist scheme. In order to become easily identifiable as the “last name in the phone book” Holland took on the professional pseudonym of Zachary Zzzra. Over the next 15 years, he had to periodically add some “z’s” as first a “Zelda Zzzwramp” and then a “Vladimir Zzzzzzabokov” moved to town. By 1979, Holland’s painting contract business could be found under the unwieldy moniker of Zachary Zzzzzzzzzra.

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Comments (12)

  1. After reading the section on the Puritans, I had to share that my recaptcha is: subversions aided.

    Bet they were wacky folks when the blinds went down.

    posted by josh on 3-11-2009 at 1:30 pm

  2. Re: Unusual names at the end of the phone book: At the risk of enbarassing him if he reads this, I have a grandson named “Zzyzzx Aacaab (lastname)”. He generally goes by “Z.”

    posted by Annette on 3-11-2009 at 1:54 pm

  3. Denmark’s list of 7000 allowed names is licentious abundance compared to what the French had to go through before 1993. Before then (saith Wikipedia)–”Officially, only names figuring on a calendar [e.g. names of saint's feast days], or names of illustrious Frenchmen/women of the past, could be accepted…in 1966, a new law permitted a limited number of mythological, regional or foreign names, substantives (Olive, Violette), diminutives, and alternative spellings.”
    I heard that’s why there’s so many hyphenated first names in France…parents were trying to achieve some individualization!

    posted by VM on 3-11-2009 at 2:00 pm

  4. Zzyzz? Named after the place in California’s Mojave Desert?

    posted by VM on 3-11-2009 at 2:03 pm

  5. Is “Hath Christ Not Died For Thee Thou Wouldst Be Damned Barebone” real? I cover the Puritans in my history class and would love to use this example, so long as it’s factual!

    posted by JohnCream on 3-11-2009 at 2:09 pm

  6. The Danish limitations on names has led to everyone having at least three names and frequently four. Women are often addressed by their two first names, “Inge Brit”, or “Anne Lise”, for example.

    It’s very reminiscent of the American South.

    I imagine the “google your name to see how unique you are” game is not very fun in Denmark.

    posted by Bryan on 3-11-2009 at 4:53 pm

  7. Nicholas is listed on Wikipedia. There, however, they claim his name was Nicholas Unless-Jesus-Christ-Had-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barbon. His father was Praise-God Barbon.

    posted by Sam on 3-11-2009 at 6:13 pm

  8. Man, those Puritans. Now I know where Terry Pratchett got his inspiration for Omnian names like Constable Visit-the-Infidel-with-Explanatory-Pamphlets.

    posted by collier on 3-12-2009 at 1:06 am

  9. Puritan (and other early US colonial) names can say a lot about a family’s experiences. Among my own ancestors, Mayflower passenger Elizabeth Tilley’s daughter was Desire Howland, her daughter was Fear Sturgis, and her daughter was Temperance Gorham–so Desire gave birth to Fear, and Fear gave birth to Temperance. I’m glad this is no longer a naming trend, or I’d have been named Accident.

    posted by TiPa on 3-12-2009 at 2:57 am

  10. Hey VM, you’re thinking of Zzyzx, CA.

    posted by Frosty on 3-12-2009 at 10:41 am

  11. i had a puritan great-grandmother who was named Silence. she had sisters (no kidding) named Prudence and Mercy.
    her brother’s names weren’t as fun unfortunately. just William’s (two of them since the first one died in infancy) and John.

    posted by em on 3-13-2009 at 3:27 am

  12. My real name is Forest which is kind of hippie-ish. Although Forest Gump jokes are extremely annoying. my favorite response when some one learns my name is “is that your real name?” “yeah” “all right then I will refrain from making any forest Gump jokes.”
    (note I have never seen Forest Gump nor do i wish to)

    posted by Forest on 3-17-2009 at 10:11 pm

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