(no subject)

[jazzfish]

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.

Comments

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

That's most excellent.

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. :)

[scathach.livejournal.com]

If I were sober I would remember what the 'W' stands for... which is probably just as well, because I'm tipsy enough that I would blow the secret just because I could.

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.

[beracjade.livejournal.com]

i knew the "real" names of you and mortimer, i just never knew how you guys got them. i think it was a year or so after meeting y'all that i learned when the "real" names were, though..

[platypusgirl.livejournal.com]

My current phrase for when Adam answers the phone at home is "If they can't pronounce my last name - I'm not here". I love it. It saves me so much time.