Those of us with offensive last names are here

August 29, 2018 9:05 AM

and we will not be silenced. A twitter thread by Natalie Weiner of sbnation, who was just trying to sign up for a website. With contributions from James Butts, Steve Suconcock, Matt Cummings, and many others.
posted by Hypatia (131 comments total)

This reminds me: I went to high school with a boy whose last name was pronounced "semen." I had known him for years and still laughed out loud one day at roll call. Sorry, bud!
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 9:10 AM on August 29, 2018

This is not the first time I've said this on metafilter, but one of the highlights of researching stuff from 17-1800s Britain for my BA thesis was all the excellent and hilarious surnames.

A selection that I've saved all these years:

Robert Gooch
Benjamin Gooch (his son)
Roger Cooter
Lord Henry Cockburn
Sir Thomas Booby

posted by phunniemee at 9:11 AM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names, #31.
posted by Sequence at 9:12 AM on August 29, 2018 [28 favorites]

Seems like the appropriate place for this Simpsons clip.
posted by praemunire at 9:20 AM on August 29, 2018 [11 favorites]

I went to college with a guy whose last name was "Kourepenis." A friend of mine was an RA when the guy was an incoming freshman; she got the list of her freshmen's names and panicked because she was positive she wouldn't be able to not laugh when he introduced himself. We were all, "No, come on, he must pronounce it 'koh-REH-pen-iss' or something, don't worry." He didn't.

I also went to college with a woman named "Melissa Peed," which I still think is the most unfortunate name I've ever heard -- sorry, Melissa, if you're reading this.
posted by holborne at 9:23 AM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Poor Melissa Finger, whose university gave her the email address Fingerme@....
posted by arcticwoman at 9:25 AM on August 29, 2018 [24 favorites]

the email address Fingerme@....

I think I've mentioned this before, but I know a guy whose last name is Wild and whose college assigned emails in the form Lastname+digits (which I think came from the student ID number).

His email was wild69@....edu.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:28 AM on August 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

My birth name stuck me with the college email of xmadame@
posted by luckynerd at 9:29 AM on August 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

I once worked with a woman named Cathy Hymen. I don't even want to think about the shit she got in school.
posted by sotonohito at 9:34 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

"Uh, look, I'll level with you, Mister. This is a prank call that sort of backfired, and I'd like to bail out right now."
posted by entropicamericana at 9:34 AM on August 29, 2018 [17 favorites]

heh, my pal, last name of "Gee," was long-ago assigned [e-mail]. (They changed the convention just for him.)

if your last name can be an adjective of any type, careful with the name Richard, eh?
posted by easement1 at 9:35 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Buttbuttinate.
posted by jillithd at 9:36 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

if your last name can be an adjective of any type, careful with the name Richard, eh?

The dude across the street from me for a few years growing up.... his last name was Bender. He went by Dick. I never got the courage to ask him why he didn't at least try to go by Richard or Rick.
posted by tclark at 9:38 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

Somebody in that Twitter thread, last name "Dick", said she considered using "Richard" instead to register for a Webinar. This reminded me that my son (age 8 or 9 at the time) once asked me, "so is his real name Phillip K. Richard?"
posted by curiousgene at 9:38 AM on August 29, 2018 [24 favorites]

We have a candidate for county sheriff currently with the last name of Dickhaus. We have a cleaning company named after the Buttweilers who own it. And a mechanics shop named Fouquette Auto. Names are fun!
posted by jillithd at 9:45 AM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

I used to be the contact point for a bloke we worked with whose given name, and I promise I am not making this up, was Mike Hunt.
posted by biffa at 9:47 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I went to college with a -- gods help me, the best adjective really is "sweet" -- young woman named Candy Butts.
posted by martin q blank at 9:49 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

Oh man there are so many place names in the northeastern US with the -cock suffix, as it's the english/french interpretation/spelling of indigenous Algonquian place names. Some of them end instead with -coke which can also set off offensive language filters.
posted by poffin boffin at 9:51 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Poor Melissa Finger, whose university gave her the email address Fingerme@....

The Australian university I attended had a convention, with no exceptions. Someone whose name may have been Arthur Robert Solomon or Alice Rebecca Solano or something similar ended up with a memorably unfortunate one.
posted by acb at 9:55 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

If your last name is Boozer, should your first name be Young? The locally famous family is up to the third generation of this great name.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 9:56 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

> Cockburn

Some lucky fellow with this name had a flower named after him: Rubus Cockburnianus.
posted by lucidium at 10:02 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

There was a car dealer where I grew up with the last name Raper.

Also this is less on the inappropriate scale but I once met a government worker named Goodenough and I still can't get over that.
posted by olinerd at 10:02 AM on August 29, 2018 [20 favorites]

Why is “Gooch” funny? It has no meaning that I know of and is a well known name in any country that plays cricket (Graham Gooch is a very famous retired cricket star).
posted by w0mbat at 10:10 AM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

once in Cabo with some friends and weirdo expat dude was glomming onto us. he said his name was Dick Man, so we referred to him as Ricardo Hombre.

this topic is dear to me, my last name is not a naughty word but damn close and also just kinda funny for other reasons so I really know what this is like (sooooo fun in middle school, yeah...)
posted by supermedusa at 10:11 AM on August 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

w0mbat - crude slang for female genitalia. (source: Brit/Aussie husband)
posted by olinerd at 10:13 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

From a company client list many years ago: Herman Christ, answering the eternal question of what the H. stands for.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 10:13 AM on August 29, 2018 [24 favorites]

In the old days of the internet (usenet groups), one group had a regular commenter who used her .edu address.

Her last name was Cummins. Her first name started with M and her middle name started with E.

The naming schema for that university was six letters of the last name, then first initial, middle initial.

cumminme@$$$.edu.
posted by notsnot at 10:19 AM on August 29, 2018 [20 favorites]

Amen - it is long past the time when we should recognize the plight of people yoked with bad names.

One time I encountered difficulty filling out the shipping address of relatives who live in Cumming, Georgia. I just started switching the letters up until it accepted it and wound up with something like "Cgmimnu". Hope it didn't wind up in Wales.
posted by milkrate at 10:25 AM on August 29, 2018 [16 favorites]

I know a nice old lady named Dorcas Titcum.
posted by q*ben at 10:26 AM on August 29, 2018 [13 favorites]

I worked a customer service 800 number out of college and I kept a list of great names that I came across. Decades later I still remember Eberdeen Tree, Wycliffe Furcrombe III, Cherry Cox and Frosty Snowmen.

A digression: I love customer databases. I used to manage an app with a huge list of small companies and they were gold. (The Lawn Ranger and Abdullah The Butcher are both real companies.)
posted by Cris E at 10:29 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

crude slang for female genitalia

I thought it was a British (possibly regional) slang term for the perineum (used interchangeably with “grundle”).
posted by acb at 10:31 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

What's so funny about Biggus Dickus? (SLYT)
posted by Cris E at 10:32 AM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

I've only seen it refer to the perineum (and nearly always for a male).
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 10:34 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I once worked with a woman named Cathy Hymen. I don't even want to think about the shit she got in school.

Misty Hyman quite fittingly won gold in the 200-meter butterfly at the Sydney Olympics.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 10:36 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

This can be a problem when transliterating eastern European names into English. For example, the common Russian first name Семён - related to Simon - is transliterated in the Library of Congress System as Semen. The twentieth-century literary and art theorist Михаил Лифшиц becomes, once his German-Jewish surname is transliterated into English, Mikhail Lifshits. But what choice do we have? The rigor of the system must be maintained!
posted by a certain Sysoi Pafnut'evich at 10:38 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

I worked with a young woman, Isha G, who got ishag@... I don't think she understood why her UK colleagues found it amusing
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 10:39 AM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I once worked with a woman named Cathy Hymen. I don't even want to think about the shit she got in school.

Flo Hyman was one of the best volleyball players in the world between the mid-70s and her death in 1986.
posted by Cris E at 10:39 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh man -- 43rdAnd9th reminded me of the time I was on a placement in Wales and brought in some homemade cookies. Without thinking, I merrily informed everyone that they were from the Fannie Farmer cookbook.

Many, many minutes later when my manager stopped laughing so hard he cried, I promised to bring in the dust jacket for him to keep as a glorious relic.
posted by kalimac at 10:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [23 favorites]

oh I used to work at a hardware store with a regular customer named Flossie Hooker. such an awesome name!!!
posted by supermedusa at 10:45 AM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Former New Hampshire congressman Dick Swett is totally here for this conversation.
posted by briank at 10:51 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

That time Kenny Rogers visited the UK and was being interviewed on tv - he mentioned that he has a string of chicken restaurants called "Kenny Roger's Roasters" and couldn't understand why the interviewer and everyone in the audience lost it for about 5 minutes laughing.
posted by parki at 11:03 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

There is a very nice woman who works on a team adjacent to mine here whose email address is "yi_the_wang@[company]" and I have to internally apologize to her for internally chuckling at this every time I have to send her an email.
posted by hanov3r at 11:03 AM on August 29, 2018

Poor Melissa Finger, whose university gave her the email address Fingerme@....
This really happened to a friend of mine in college - her last name was Um and the email system suggested CUm@.

Also, I'll never leave one of these conversations without mentioning local real estate agent Randy Bender. Hope this guy never has to do business in an English-speaking country other than the US...
posted by capricorn at 11:06 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

> string of chicken restaurants called "Kenny Roger's Roasters"

I don't get it...
posted by mrbill at 11:11 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

"Kenny Roger's Roasters"

Oh, he does, does he?
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:17 AM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names, #31.
Sequence, I love this article. The one I most commonly run into in my work (I'm in the US) is how to alphabetize names that don't fit into first/last or last/first naming conventions. Should (fake example) "George van der Berg" be under V or B?

And titles? I'm from the US so I could be wrong on this but my understanding is a patronymic is not a surname, so e.g. you wouldn't call Jon Jonsson of Iceland "Mr. Jonsson".

And heck, even the concept of a "middle name" or "middle initial" is so bad at handling many cases. My middle initial is the first letter of my mom's surname. My brother has two given names and his middle initial is the first letter of the second one. My mom's full name is first name + confirmation name + patronymic + maiden name + married name. Her patronymic gets awkwardly translated into English as just her dad's first name.
posted by capricorn at 11:18 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Ah yes, this reminds me of a kid I went to church with growing up named John* Bumgardener. It's a super-common name where I'm from in the US, and I never EVER thought about what it might otherwise mean until one day I was telling a story about John Bumgardener** to some European friends and they just about shit themselves laughing. To this day they believe that I was lying about knowing a kid named John Bumgardener.

*First name changed in case he googles himself.
** One Sunday morning when I was about 8, John Bumgardener fainted in church and cracked his head on the back of the pew. An ambulance was called and I thought he had died until a few days later my mom was like, "What? No!"
posted by lollymccatburglar at 11:19 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I know a Vietnamese guy whose full name is The Ho.

I was also rejected by Verizon FiOS sign up page for having the same first and last name. It literally said both fields can't be the same thing. Customer service basically told me that to go ahead and sign up with a misspelling of my first name, and then change it on their website later. I tried and there's literally nowhere on their website to change your name on your bill (you don't even see it unless you look at a PDF bill statement).

And this just now reminded me that I never got around to changing it because I'm using auto-pay and there hasn't been a problem with my bank card. So it's still misspelled on the bill that I just looked at :-/
posted by numaner at 11:20 AM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

Email addresses for Library of Congress staff, if the ones I have known are anything to go by, are your first initial followed by the first three letters of your last name. My last name begins W-A-T and my first name starts with T, which has given me several fairly bad email addresses to begin with.

So, although I am a librarian, I cannot possibly work at the Library of Congress.
posted by clavicle at 11:23 AM on August 29, 2018 [13 favorites]

oh hi! I'm a LoC employee, and they do make exceptions when appropriate. I never pointed it to them but the first three letters of my name means "stupid" in Vietnamese, so it's [first initial][stupid]@loc.gov, but no other Vietnamese coworkers ever noticed. :P
posted by numaner at 11:27 AM on August 29, 2018 [8 favorites]

We had a local perennial city council candidate named Dick Rider. >snerk!<
posted by SPrintF at 11:30 AM on August 29, 2018

I went to high school with a girl whose last name was Hymen and, having a dirty sense of humor herself, she went by "Buster." (Also, when you're already called Buster Hymen, how much worse can bullies do with the last name Hymen, really?)

I have a friend whose last name is Cocks and when she's on the phone she'll say "Cocks" and the other person says "C-O-X?" and she always replies, "No, the dirty way."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:34 AM on August 29, 2018 [34 favorites]

I realized this week how lucky a colleague at a nearby university is that his U doesn't use the first initial-last name combo that my U does--his email would have been LOser@ univ.edu.

I have a great-uncle named Gaylord Cox, who was old enough not only to have that first name in the first place, but for it to be nicknamed as "Gay" with a straight face (no pun intended).
posted by dlugoczaj at 11:39 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

My husband's friend's last name is Asseman. He's outside the US so it doesn't affect him on a daily basis, but every trip to the US has the TSA officers in absolute stitches.
posted by Liesl at 11:41 AM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

When I was in grad school, a job candidate named Richard Cox came in. Many of us attended his talk. Afterwards, several of us — all women — were standing around outside a classmate’s office talking about his presentation. The classmate left his office while we were talking and asked briefly how the talk was and then went on his way. Some time later he returned and said, “Are you all STILL talking about Cox?!?” We sniggered. I never saw someone turn so red.
posted by kittydelsol at 11:44 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

whose university gave her the email address...

Worst I've heard (slightly changed to protect the innocent): Soloman Thomas Draper became haha-no-seriously-that's-not-funny STDraper. He had to threaten a lawsuit to get them to change it.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 11:45 AM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Ah yes, this reminds me of a kid I went to church with growing up named John* Bumgardener. It's a super-common name where I'm from in the US, and I never EVER thought about what it might otherwise mean until one day I was telling a story about John Bumgardener** to some European friends and they just about shit themselves laughing. To this day they believe that I was lying about knowing a kid named John Bumgardener.

I wouldn't have believed that it's that common a name, but a professional baseball player named Madison Bumgarner apparently dated a girl also named Madison Bumgarner while they were both in high school because there are so many Bumgarners around there.
posted by Copronymus at 11:49 AM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

For what it's worth, Deadspin tried, but was unable, to verify that story last year.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:12 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

w0mbat - crude slang for female genitalia. (source: Brit/Aussie husband)

Ah, OK. It must be an Aussie thing as I'm British myself and haven't heard of that.

The number one trap for British people in Australia is "root". Tell someone you're rooting for them, or that you've been rooting around in the office cupboard, and they'll laugh for days.
posted by w0mbat at 12:15 PM on August 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

When I was in middle school, a friend swore that the guy down the street from his house was named Harry Richard Holder. I refused to believe it, but there he was, listed in the phone book.
posted by cyclopticgaze at 12:20 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Why is “Gooch” funny?

Gooch is a, I'm sure regional, variant of taint.
posted by phunniemee at 12:26 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

As a kid in the eighties, I always wondered if the CBC VJs were too prim to pronounce Bruce Cockburn's name correctly. But casual internet research says the ck has always been legit silent, dating back to its origins in Scotland. TIL!
posted by Sauce Trough at 12:30 PM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

Used to drive by the mailbox of Edith Cox. I think she died aged 80.
posted by joeyh at 12:32 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I read an article about sprinter Tyson Gay that was posted on an over-zealous website that changed each mention of "Gay" to "Homosexual" (I'm not sure why this is considered less offensive, but whatever).

It was awesome.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 12:39 PM on August 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

In the early 90s, I worked the front desk of a software sales company one summer. All sales calls came through the front desk. I had to put the calls on hold and announce over the PA system "line #, last name" so that the salespeople could pick up. The best sales guy had the last name "Seaman". I had to announce "#1 Seaman" about 50X a day. Fun times.
posted by jraz at 12:53 PM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

When I was a kid in Austin we all got so much amusement out of the fact that HEB (regional grocery powerhouse) was named after a Howard E Butt.
posted by kmz at 12:57 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Some lucky fellow with this name had a flower named after him: Rubus Cockburnianus.

I don't think anyone's ever managed to get through a mineralogy class without giggling at Cummingtonite.
posted by nogoodverybad at 1:06 PM on August 29, 2018 [10 favorites]

There's a law office I sometimes go past that's called "V. Good and Co. lawyers."

Who wouldn't hire them?
posted by stillnocturnal at 1:09 PM on August 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

There was a fine 14th century gent by the name of Roger Fuckebythenavele. Also the first recorded use of the word fuck.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:12 PM on August 29, 2018 [9 favorites]

Fornication Under Consent of King Ebythenavele
posted by tobascodagama at 1:14 PM on August 29, 2018 [7 favorites]

There was a Vietnamese kid in my elementary school named Dung Heep
posted by BadgerDoctor at 1:15 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I read an article about sprinter Tyson Gay that was posted on an over-zealous website that changed each mention of "Gay" to "Homosexual" (I'm not sure why this is considered less offensive, but whatever).

Also re Tyson Gay . . .
posted by dlugoczaj at 1:18 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Ok, but surely that one was on purpose.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:24 PM on August 29, 2018

I was unable to call my former eye doctor Dr. Kuntz. She was female. I called her by her first name.

I saw one name that well, I won't spell it out because of Google but it sounded like they were having painful diarrhea.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:24 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Worst last names I've ever encountered were, by a long shot, Dumcum and Henroid.
posted by aliasless at 1:25 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Poor Melissa Finger, whose university gave her the email address Fingerme@....

Oh, I also knew imastoner@....
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:25 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I was once a financial journalist and we all got a giggle when Mustafa Koc was named President of Koc Holdings.

There was also a company called Kumho Tires.
posted by chavenet at 1:26 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I once worked with somebody whose last name was Schank and chose not to pronounce it "sh–".
posted by Lexica at 1:40 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I once subbed a math class in which one of the students was "Precious Johnson"
posted by notsnot at 1:42 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

A former colleague of mine, surname of Dix, sold her car to a man named Cox. After submitting the paperwork, she had the DVLA ringing her up to verify that this was in fact a genuine transfer of ownership, and not a case of Somebody Being Hilarious.

Also, this post is crying out for a link to Rowan Atkinson's 'Dirty Names' sketch (NSFW).
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 1:59 PM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

There was a Vietnamese kid in my elementary school named Dung Heep

My mom's first name used to be Dung, she changed it for obvious reasons, but the pronunciation in Vietnamese is completely different. She changed her name to Felicia of all things. Before the phrase was born.
posted by numaner at 2:01 PM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

If you've never heard of Kate Micucci, she's great.
posted by numaner at 2:08 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

buttbuttinate. I'm crying silently with laughter at my desk.
posted by yarly at 2:14 PM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Phunniemee, tell us about the Gooches. I grew up in Goochland County, VA and always wondered about the origin.

I'm friends with a Dick and a Butt, and I had a professor in college with the last name Siemen. Good times.
posted by emelenjr at 2:18 PM on August 29, 2018

I knew a Vietnamese-American guy in school whose last name was Hung. He figured the best way of not getting laughed at was to make the joke first. The best was always when someone was going down a list of names (looking for the sole Asian kid, usually) and said "you Hung?" He would invariably reply, at high volume, "LIKE A HORSE, SIR!"
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:27 PM on August 29, 2018 [22 favorites]

I read an article about sprinter Tyson Gay that was posted on an over-zealous website that changed each mention of "Gay" to "Homosexual" (I'm not sure why this is considered less offensive, but whatever).

That one wasn't intended to be less offensive, it was intended to be more offensive. It was a conservative christian website that set the filter up to remind everyone the Gay people have Sex! Probably Buttsex! Aren't they gross?!
posted by stet at 2:48 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

Also, these threads always frustrate me because I have a friend with a co-worker whose name is really super unambiguously a sex act and as well as a large proportion of workers who are not native English speakers and were not raised in the US. And it's a nickname she chose. I assumed it was just one of those false cognates like Phuket, Thailand. No. Middle-aged American white lady.

And I can never share this name because it's super googleable and I really don't want her to come across people making fun of her name on the internets.
posted by stet at 2:53 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

In the early 1990s I served in the US Army, and one of my fellow soldiers was a Filipino immigrant with the last name of Diksuk. That was a less enlightened era, and he definitely knew how to fight.
posted by seasparrow at 3:10 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

When I worked for BT there was a chap in the Ipswich office who was called Robert Sherunkle
posted by gnuhavenpier at 3:13 PM on August 29, 2018 [12 favorites]

Well, worked in both academia and database firms and certain names remain with me still: [name of your favorite Disney fawn] and Loverink was one at your favorite aerospace firm. I thought maybe it was the pseudonym used by the NSA rep on the engineering team. Another name that stuck out was Lovelady.
posted by jadepearl at 3:13 PM on August 29, 2018

The UCLA University Research Library (now the Young Research Library) has a plaque in the lobby. The story is that UCLA named it URL before finally naming it after Charles Young when he retired in 1997 to avoid calling it the name on that plaque.

(the plaque is supposedly no longer there? can someone confirm?)
posted by linux at 3:22 PM on August 29, 2018 [6 favorites]

How has Dick Hyman not been mentioned yet?
posted by davejay at 3:27 PM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

iirc "the gooch" was arnold's schoolyard bully on diff'rent strokes.
not to be outdone, "boner" was mike seaver's friend on growing pains.
posted by 20 year lurk at 3:55 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

I worked for a garage years ago and one of our customers was called Mr Pinecoffin.
posted by jontyjago at 3:58 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I met a doctor once called Dr. Slaughter.
posted by stillnocturnal at 4:11 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

buttbuttinate, v: when you have to kill a public figure, but you really don't want to hurt them
posted by a halcyon day at 4:15 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

I used to answer phones for someone named Harry Fuchs. I could always tell when it was a stranger calling in, as they'd say "Uh. I'm calling for Mr. uh.. um..."
"Fyooks?" I'd answer & there was always a pause and a relived laugh before they said yes.
posted by belladonna at 4:32 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Can't think of any I know personally, but a friend of mine swears blind that she was at school with a girl called Nesta Krapp.

The first thing this whole discussion reminded me of was the story about the 1920s prankster (probably Horace de Vere Cole) who invited a collection of men called Sidebottom, Winterbottom, Longbottom etc to a meal at which the main course was rump steak.

Perhaps the best thing to do with an awkward name is to own it, like the Scots actor Alan Cumming, who has put his name to a fragrance, Cumming for Men.
posted by Fuchsoid at 5:12 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Having a last name that rhymes with Hitler (but with no H and2 Ts) was no picnic, and even less so for my father who was old enough to volunteer for the Marines when WWII started and the recruiters took one look at his name and even though he'd spent his entire life on the East Coast, sent him to the Pacific Theater.
posted by oneswellfoop at 5:25 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Max Buttram

Rex Tugwell
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 5:33 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I met a doctor once called Dr. Slaughter.

A friend of mine was bitten by a dog and had plastic surgery in the ER to repair her face. The doctor’s name was Dr. Doctor.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:36 PM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

rhymes with Hitler (but with no H and2 Ts)

I can't imagine what growing up with the name Titler was like.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:36 PM on August 29, 2018 [3 favorites]

This throws me back to my high school AP Bio course, in which my labmate was named Steele Johnson.
posted by MrBobinski at 5:41 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

And I can never share this name because it's super googleable and I really don't want her to come across people making fun of her name on the internets.

I have this problem every time there is a name thread.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:42 PM on August 29, 2018

The doctor’s name was Dr. Doctor

Chief Justice Lord Judge
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 6:16 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Had a JROTC instructor from he deep south who delighted in taking roll when Mike Hunt was in my section. Usually calling the name several times.

Dude, when 15-year old boys are rolling their eyes at your sniggering, it’s time to knock it off.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:37 PM on August 29, 2018

I knew a graduate student named "Fukang Zhu"
posted by donpardo at 7:17 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

I met a doctor once called Dr. Slaughter.

More eponysterical than anything else, but the infamous Dr. Cockburn, the urologist.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:35 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

And this is my other coworker, Cunnilingus.
posted by medusa at 7:37 PM on August 29, 2018

What, no Wieners yet?

The (probably apocryphal, but my dad told it to me when I was too young to really get the joke) story that gets told in my family is that my great aunt, Gail Wiener, decided that she wanted to go by something less pedestrian when she was in high school, so she chose Anita as the most glamorous name she could come up with. She wrote G. Anita Wiener on all her homework assignments.
posted by coppermoss at 7:50 PM on August 29, 2018 [5 favorites]

In my local area, I know of a Mike Hunt (though he prefers Michael) and a Jack Wang.

In the category of show business people with dirty-sounding names, one of my favorites is actor and director Peter Bonerz, best known for playing Jerry the dentist on the first "Bob Newhart Show" (the one where Newhart played a psychiatrist).
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 8:35 PM on August 29, 2018

Oh, my gosh, you guys.

I'm keen on graphic design, and one of the little nerdy things I like to look at on YouTube sometimes is the evolution of film and TV production company logos (1940s Art Deco Universal globe FTW!). Anyway, I was watching a logo compilation history for Thames Television recently, and right around the 1976 era, there was a final personnel credit for the program's director before it went to the end logo. Her name?

Roberta Stiffdick.
posted by droplet at 9:00 PM on August 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Over the years, I've compiled a list of 143 names of men who go by Dick when they should not. And a shorter list of Johnsons and Peters and suchlike.
posted by bryon at 9:19 PM on August 29, 2018 [2 favorites]

Lake Titicaca... never not funny.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:32 PM on August 29, 2018 [4 favorites]

Searching a GIF keyboard for Dick Van Dyke will tell you all sorts of things about humanity.
posted by armeowda at 9:35 PM on August 29, 2018

kalimac: Without thinking, I merrily informed everyone that they were from the Fannie Farmer cookbook.

Yeah, I lived in Fannie Bay (Australia) for a while. My sister's British girlfriend and her family were...startled.
posted by pseudonymph at 12:54 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Not a dirty one, but I worked with someone whose last name was Sample and it would cause no end of confusion when filling out sheets and so forth (new people always thought the "Sample" in the name was an indication that it was a sample record and would delete it).

I worked with someone who had the first initial B and the last name Low. His email address became, you guessed it, [e-mail].
posted by rednikki at 1:23 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

Lake Titicaca... never not funny.

On my South American vacation, I took a tourist cruise of Lake Titicaca on the Peruvian side, and the guide joked that “the Titi is in Peru, the caca is in Bolivia.” A few days later I did a similar cruise on the Bolivian side and got the same joke, reversed.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 2:36 AM on August 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

I don't think anyone's ever managed to get through a mineralogy class without giggling at Cummingtonite.

- I ordered some minerals
- Cummingtonite?
- No, they'll probably be here in a few days
posted by acb at 3:43 AM on August 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

At university, email aliases were created by taking up to the first six letters of your surname and then appending your first initial. So, John Constable becomes constaj and Jane Doe becomes doej and so on.

In the year below, there was a student called Kit Wan. He got them to change his alias.
posted by parm at 5:44 AM on August 30, 2018

Not a dirty one, but I worked with someone whose last name was Sample and it would cause no end of confusion when filling out sheets and so forth (new people always thought the "Sample" in the name was an indication that it was a sample record and would delete it).

Meet Senator J. Tester of Montana.
posted by each day we work at 5:44 AM on August 30, 2018

How we choir boys tittered whenever the Minister announced the next Cathedral anthem as "Shite in F", being his Edinburgh pronounciation of Heinrich Schütz. Regrettably, my school pal Willie Dick wasn't in that choir.
posted by falcon at 6:16 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

There's always Butt Drugs.
posted by deezil at 7:06 AM on August 30, 2018

I loved the put down I heard when I was at college many years ago.
A friend was introducing a very beautiful Indian girl with an unusual name and the chap said "Wow, that is not a name you hear every day!" and the girl ( in a very offended tone) replied:-

"I do!".
posted by Burn_IT at 7:39 AM on August 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

The doctor’s name was Dr. Doctor.

The Director of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a supplements lobbying firm, is Mr. Mister
posted by numaner at 10:23 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

A very funny lady I once worked with was married to a guy named Richard who went by Dick. They named their son Richard Junior, and called him Dick also. To everyone in the office's amusement, she regularly referred to them as big Dick and little Dick.
posted by TwoToneRow at 10:35 AM on August 30, 2018

"This is not the first time I've said this on metafilter, but one of the highlights of researching stuff from 17-1800s Britain for my BA thesis was all the excellent and hilarious surnames."

Ha! My MA thesis was on surnames in 13th-14th century West Yorkshire. Middle English surnames in general can be pretty entertaining. I turned it into a book eventually, though it's about all the surnames, not specifically amusing ones.

I also teach a class on dirty names!
posted by litlnemo at 2:25 PM on August 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

My friend’s mother in law is named Faire Pickel .
posted by freecellwizard at 3:35 PM on August 30, 2018

Mine are all secondhand, but I have a lot of sympathy for Eric Shin, Dick Rash (apparently a middle school teacher who really made the most of it), and the entirety of the Fangboner clan.
posted by invitapriore at 6:44 PM on August 30, 2018

I once met a government worker named Goodenough and I still can't get over that.

The psychologist Florence Goodenough developed a test for children that was originally known as the Goodenough Draw-a-Man Test.

"Now, your picture doesn't have to be perfect..."
posted by straight at 9:50 PM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

For a short period of time, I had a teacher in middle school called Mrs. Lickdyke.

She had to deal with middle school kids every day, with that name. And it was her married name. She made the decision to take her husband's surname.

Mrs. Lickdyke was made of stronger stuff than anyone on the planet.
posted by Gordafarin at 3:46 AM on September 3, 2018 [4 favorites]