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Mar. 8th, 2003 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfish![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jude was wondering how I got my name a day or so ago, and it occurred to me that there's probably a decent number of people reading this who have no idea that my name *isn't* Tucker. So...The name on my birth certificate is John W Taylor. (Yes, the W stands for something. Ask me again in a year and I'll tell you. This is a habit that started because I hated my middle name, and that I now keep going out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Yes, if you're a deranged stalker you can probably find it fairly trivially. That takes all the fun out of it, now doesn't it?) I realised pretty early on that there's just not much you can expect out of a name like "John Taylor." It's not something you'll ever see on the cover of a book, for instance. (Not an interesting one, anyway.) But until I got to high school my only other choices were "Johnny" and "John Boy."
So, I'm sitting in a classroom at Jefferson, in my first eighth period activity ever (probably Forensics, although it may have been Troupe), and someone says "Hey, Tucker!" I look up, and there's this fairly cute girl a year ahead of me who seems to be talking to me. I say "My name's not Tucker," and she says, "Oh. Well, you look like a Tucker." To which I have no reply, since I've just come from five years of outcast nerd-dom in Fayettehell and it's more or less inconceivable that someone (much less someone cute) would want to talk to me. (For those interested in the gory details, we were friends but not close friends for the next three years. Last I heard, she went to Georgia Tech and got married.)
Later that year, or possibly early next year, several of us were eating lunch and Jon Rodney (two years ahead of me) decided that there were too many people named Jo(h)n. So, since he was the oldest he got to keep being Jon, and Mr Harding and I got new names: he was Mortimer, I was Tucker. It took awhile, but eventually it caught on.
Once I find a last name I'm happy with, I plan on having my name legally changed to Tucker John (whatever). It's got to have an accent on the second syllable (to keep the rhythm right: DAH-da DAH da-DAH....) and I want it to be tricky to pronounce so that I can automagically screen telemarketers. Welsh would be good. But nothing's really felt right yet.
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Date: 2003-03-08 08:03 pm (UTC)And I did, in fact, know that your name was John--probably from an email address or two--but still don't know your middle name. :)
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Date: 2003-03-08 10:36 pm (UTC)Welsh would be too tricky. You might try Irish. There are enough traditional names that wouldn't sound too dumb with 'Tucker.' Connacht, maybe, or similar.
God, I'm drunk. It's neat.
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Date: 2003-03-08 10:45 pm (UTC)Still, you make a good point- I know with no trace of doubt when it's a telemarketer calling me...
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Date: 2003-03-09 05:47 am (UTC)i wish i had that ability. with a name like "smith".....
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Date: 2003-03-10 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 06:46 am (UTC)(and should I lose my mind and spawn I will under no circumstances send them to public schools.)
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Date: 2003-03-12 04:50 am (UTC)It's not that simple- you also have to take apparently random clusters of letters and form whole new sounds with them.
Driven insane by the fact that they're speaking gibberish, the actors in Hamlet kill themselves. The Irish, on the other hand, simply got drunk- at which point the phonetics make complete sense.
(and should I lose my mind and spawn I will under no circumstances send them to public schools.)
You know, I'm half tempted to track you down and smack you just for that......
Gaelic and schooling
Date: 2003-03-12 11:01 am (UTC)Oh. Okay. I'd sort of suspected that, but wasn't sure, and didn't want to get the Celts up in arms over my implied criticism of their language and spelling ability.
(and should I lose my mind and spawn I will under no circumstances send them to public schools.)
You know, I'm half tempted to track you down and smack you just for that......
Really? Even after reading Gatto's Six-lesson Schoolteacher and Why Nerds are Unpopular? One child, homeschooled in some fashion. (Or maybe you thought I'd be going the private school route. Heck no. I imagine private schools are worse than public in every regard.)
Re: Gaelic and schooling
Date: 2003-03-12 11:06 am (UTC)You know, I'm half tempted to track you down and smack you just for that......
Really? Even after reading Gatto's Six-lesson Schoolteacher and Why Nerds are Unpopular? One child, homeschooled in some fashion. (Or maybe you thought I'd be going the private school route. Heck no. I imagine private schools are worse than public in every regard.)
No, no- not about that- read what you wrote again. "and should I lose my mind and spawn I will under no circumstances send them to public schools."
And your 'name' is 'Jazzfish'. Inadvertent punnery is usually the worst kind.
Re: Gaelic and schooling
Date: 2003-03-12 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-11 06:50 am (UTC)*grin* S'okay. I can never remember if your middle name has an E on the end or not.
Irish vs Welsh: the thing is, *I* know how to pronounce Welsh even if no one else does. I haven't got a clue how to pronounce Gaelic, other than "omit some random consonants in the middle of words and slur the vowels together." But yeah, in general Irish names tend to flow better.
God, I'm drunk. It's neat.
*insert bad joke about alcohol 'on the rocks' here.*
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Date: 2003-03-09 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-10 04:38 am (UTC)