The thing is
Nominative determinism… it sounds like a very hungry zombie to me.
I share the same level of fascination with it as the wonderful New Scientist, who have been running a list of such people for years, on and off.
There is the phlebotomist friend of mine who has the surname of Blood, or the vicar of the local church who is called… Tom McVicar.
Indeed, it used to be the other way around, that you were given a surname because of your profession… hence the proliferation of Smith (as in blacksmith)… or because of where you lived, Lancaster, for example.
I’m not sure what that would make my surname now… Adam Inkandstuff, probably. What about you?
As it stands, Gregory, is pretty apt. Apparently Greek in origin and means ‘Watcher’ or ‘Watchful’… how the Greeks new of my love of television I’ll never know (the guys in the basement are really behind schedule on the time machine…).
The thing I’m wondering about, and interested to know from you, is to what extent has your name determined your course in life? Did it influence where you sat at school and who you became friends with? Has it caused you to be mistaken for someone else? Do you have a name that is in any way related to your profession?
Oh, and as a side note, this is probably the first time I have mentioned John Carpenter here. I would have thought he might have cropped up before. So, which is his best and worst films, or woodwork projects?
That’s the best thing John has made in a loooooooooooo *takes breath* oooooooooooong time. Mine’s literally what it sounds like: sandy piece of land next to a brook.
Yeah, Mr ‘Write the theme tune, play the theme tune’ Carpenter has gone a little wayward of late.
I’ve been more disturbed by the remakes of his earlier work such as Assualt on Precinct 13…
And has anybody else noticed what a horrible word ‘Precinct’ is to read? Horrible.
As for your surname, I do believe the modern version is Silicastream.
Is that something you use to make fizzy sand?
/b
Yeah, but ultimately it’s a little disappointing…
Ah, sodastreams… showing your age
Mark Unemployed-Bum!
One interesting name-based anecdote was that my lead in my last job was also called Mark, so by and large I’d be referred to as Mr. Kelly- much to the chagrin of the /other/ male individual with the surname Kelly sat two seats away.
It was at this point that James, who sits somewhere between the two of us, queried if I had a middle name we could use instead…
/b
Firstly, how are you coping with the whole unemployment thing? You haven’t been squatting outside Marks and Spencers playing a penny whistle and bothering people for spare change?
You’d better not… that’s my pitch.
It’s a nightmare when two or more people with a similar name share a close proximity. It always ends up with either re-naming someone (usually with an inappropriate nickname) or resorting to full name use… which, as we know, is really the reserve of angry parents.
Wouldn’t be seen dead outside M&S- it’s exo-Waitrose squatting all the way for me.
The worst thing about the unemployment is the daft hoops you have to jump through for the job centre- not least the silly course they send you on after six months.
Then again, they’ve found me a (unpaid) work placement, so it’s not all bad.
/b
Waitrose? You didn’t tell me that you were landed gentry unemployed!
You have my sympathy, the job centre is a like a kafka-esque nightmare these days. I guess they are so used to the mindset of trying to get people to work when they don’t want to that they find it difficult to help someone who actually wants to work.
And ‘unpaid placements’ isn’t that just a term for what used to be called ’slavery’. (unless it’s somewhere really cool, like a chocolate factory).
I like They Live. Roddy Piper was surprisingly good.
May name is ten kinds of obnoxious. My first name is just common enough that often in school they would have to add the last initial, as in Joe B and the other kid would be Joe F or Joe X. My last name on the other hand is apparently phonetically baffling, the most common misspelling being Bivens, but other encountered variants include Bevins, Biving, Bivino, and once both names mutated into Job Devins. Interestingly Bivins is (I’ve recently deduced) a variant spelling of the Welsh surname Bevan, and that’s one variant I’ve never been mistakenly dubbed.
As for nominative determinism, my first name means something about “The Lord” (and is used for several Biblical characters) and I’m a radical atheist; my last name is derived from the patrilineal construct “ab Evan”, Evan meaning warrior, and I’m a pacifist (not to mention a physically inept coward.) And I didn’t really know what they meant until long after both of those attributes were locked in.
The Great Joe Bivins´s last blog ..COMIC: BAADD: Blobs All About Drunk Driving
“May name is ten kinds of obnoxious.”
That made me laugh a little too much. I don’t think your name is bad at all.
I do however sympathise with the initial adding. The fact that Joe B sounds like the far inferior Joeby.
Now, your names may not relate when taken on their own context, but putting them together you get ‘The Lord Warrior’ which sounds like some sort of millitant aetheist.
On the bright side TGJB, you weren’t “Joe’s Little Brother”. That didn’t end until grade 11. Anyways, my first name Jason means “healer” and I always knew I’d be a teacher, veterinarian, or some job involving computers, so I guess it’s partly true. Currently, my last name sort of matches my job, since it sounds like “monies” and I’m stucka s a cashier at a store, but maybe I should be a banker? I can’t screw it up worse than the ones getting $10 mil bonuses. But once I start teaching, I guess Teacher/Teach/Warp-Er-Shapeyoungminds would be it.
That’s true, as a teacher you’ll be able to mess up a whole generation of kids. Not that i think you will. Remember at least to tell them that the first man in space was Uri Geller.
What are you thinking of teaching?
My degrees in Elementary (Primary) Education. I teach all subjects required, but my specialty is math. Besides, math lessons are by far the most fun to plan. …and I sound like a total geek.
maybe, but it does sound fun. i’d have to disagree with you and say that i think science lessons would be the most fun to plan, it offers more opportunities to start the class by lighting something on fire.
that and the Socratic method, it seems best suited to science. i had a Socratic teacher for the first time my sophomore year and it’s still my favorite thing about adolescence so far.
My last name has a way more interesting story than I’ve been able to live up to so far. I took my grandmother’s second husband’s name because he and his family are ten kinds of awesome, and one of those plaques that explain the meaning of the name says Naclerio somehow means “boatman”. …I had an uncle in the coast guard, but that’s about as close to most of us get to boats for a living.
The crazy part is there’s another big family in the Bronx named Naclerio, and they’re contractors and pretty much into everything, and we get confused with them. My Poppy used to just waved people off with, “We’re cousins,” but then one of my uncles overheard someone saying they wanted to kill a guy who happened to have his name, and it’s all very silly and Italian and I love it.
I LOLed at that door, btw. I don’t think I’d hire John Carpenter for any projects around here.
That is so Godfather!
I didn’t know that I knew a mobster…. And is it me or is ‘construction’ a catch-all title for dubious activities.
I suppose you’d need to have construction links for the concrete boots you’d make, still.
haha, I work for a company that has a tag line that reads “creative construction”. Considering that alot of the work involes digging, and filling and then making it look like it was never there, 2mtr (6′8″) trenchs, I figured that they should contact the mob for body disposal services.
They might actually make a profit that way.
Ben´s last blog ..I’m all legs
if nominative determinism holds true for cats then I’m pretty sure the goddess Artemis was worshiped at least partially to keep her from peeing everywhere.
Ha… that’s pretty close to the truth.
It was more a problem that she kept leaving half-eaten birds on the carpet.
ah, nothing like the mental image of the goddess Athena engaging in random cat behaviors shortly before six A.M.
it only makes sense that our cat Galileo likes to knock things off high places and watch them fall.
the first day of school today– gaaaaaa.
My last name means not just a smith who works with a hammer, but a smith who works with a particular type of mechanical hammer built into a smithy that stands next to a brook which has been dammed, providing water power for all the equipment used therein:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhammer
This has nothing to do with my calling in life. I’m a writer, speaker, painter, jeweler, webcomic cut-and-paster, and shelf-stocker. And I’ve certainly never been confused with anyone else because of my name. I’m the only Erika Hammerschmidt I’ve ever met in person, and when you throw in my middle names (Erika Ruth Arneson Hammerschmidt) I’m probably the only one in the world.
I don’t even get it misspelled a lot, actually. People who can’t spell “Hammerschmidt” tend to ask, rather than guessing. On the other hand, people who don’t know how I spell “Erika” tend to choose at random from the three common spellings, so I had a lot of trouble with that.
When I got married to John Ricker, I considered changing my name, but I realized that 1. “Erika Ricker” would sound stupid, and 2. changing names is complicated for a published author, and 3. “Ricker” actually gets misspelled more often than “Erika” or “Hammerschmidt.”
So… yes, having a long German name with five consecutive consonants can be a hassle, especially when you try to fit it into spaces on forms. But in the end it was better than the alternatives.
Erika Hammerschmidt´s last blog ..Abby and Norma #500
Very pre-steam punk! And very specialist.
I’m slightly envious of people with names of their own. I mean, that they don’t share with anyone. But, including your middle names, what a scrabble score!
I think Erika Ricker sounds amazing though… like shouting your name into a cavern and waiting for the echo.
My grandmother’s maiden name was Ohnesorge, which is German for “without worries.” I’m in touch with some family members who still have that name, including an uncle of mine who was also my optometrist as a child. But with a name like that, he should be a psychiatrist or counselor.
My psychiatrist in childhood was surnamed Opsahl. I don’t know what that means, in what language, but it’s got “ops” in it, which makes me think of eyes. As a kid, I always wished that my eye doctor and my psychiatrist would switch names.
Erika Hammerschmidt´s last blog ..Abby and Norma #501
A name that translates as ‘without worries’… why is that Germans have the best use of language? Conceptually speaking…
I mean my favourite words are mostly of German origin… Schadenfreude, doppleganger… Just a knack for hitting the nail on the head.
But swapping your doctors around is dangerous unless you have crazy eyes or trouble seeing what you think.
I love German compound words because they accomplish, in their own language, feats of meaning which languages like English always outsource to Latin and Greek.
For instance, in English (and a lot of other languages) we have the word “hydrogen,” which comes from ancient words meaning “water stuff”… while the Germans just call it “Wasserstoff.” And… hmm, let me think of another example… well, “diarrhea” comes from Latin or Greek words meaning “running through,” while “Durchfall,” the German word for “diarrhea,” simply means “through-fall” in plain German.
Erika Hammerschmidt´s last blog ..Abby and Norma #503
i visited an ankle doctor named dr. knee.
i never understood she didn’t instead become a knee specialist.
Seraphine´s last blog ..Circling the Drain
This running thing of oddly named doctors…there’s a comedy sketch in there somewhere.
i made a pact with my sister that if i ever decide to get a phd i have to legally change my last name to ‘brain’
Go on then, that sounds fun… when I get mine I’m going to change my surname to ‘Dhume’.
I used to giggle endlessly at the Eastenders character named Dr. Legg, but now my mum’s actual doctor’s name is Dr. Nano. She’s not THAT small. Being a NaNoWriMo junkie I used to joke that maybe she’s capable of seeing 50,000 patients in a month. I’m glad she doesn’t for my mum’s sake.
Lynda´s last blog ..Singing and conjuring cats is all it takes to make a fan out of me.
Perhaps you start off at the toes and work your way up?
My husband had his broken leg repaired by a bone surgeon named Doctor Bohn.
Never mind that her name actually means “bean” in German. It’s still awesome.
Erika Hammerschmidt´s last blog ..Abby and Norma #503
As you can tell, my surname is Simpkins. I’m the only one I know, but I bet you English are swimming in them…especially in the midlands areas, right?
I looked-up it’s meaning and was satisfied, but not astounded. ^.^
My first name, middle initial and surname has gotten me arrested before. Some guy with almost the same birthday and very similar name had a warrant and I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Didn’t help that I was doing the wrong thing aswell.
I once dated a girl who’s last name was pronounced exactly the same as mine, which led to some amusing incidents, mostly at hotel check-ins, etc.
My last name is based on a famous german river, but was changed during the first or second world war to avoid association with the Nazi’s. I don’t really have anything to do with rivers, tho, I have nothing against them.
I worked in an underground coal mine with a bloke called Mick Underhill.
Ben´s last blog ..I’m all legs
Oooh, new little picture thingies. I like it!
I can’t remember where my surname is from, or what it stands for, but it has affected my life somewhat. Due to being Madeline Wilding, I can cut out eight letters from the two names and become Mad Wild. When I was younger I sorta used it as an excuse to live up to such a name, and now it’s just expected of me.
I always thought it was a Welsh surname, but apparently it’s not, which is a little dissappointing as I now have no real evidence of my half Welshness. And no excuse to continue attempting the accent….Except for to live up to my name :p
My last name is the same character as Qin Shi-Huang, the Emperor of China from 246 BCE to 221 BCE.
My first name isn’t that common, so it should be easy to remember. And yet, people misremember it often enough that I started introducing myself to other people using a shortened form of it.
sitting pugs´s last blog ..Grab Bag of the Good Stuff: Love the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus
A bit late to this game, but this comic motivated me to look up, for the first time, the meaning of my last name. It derives from the German words for “strong bear”. So my full name alludes to a drunk circus animal. Which sounds dangerous but also awkwardly hilarious. And that seems appropriate, somehow.
Just found your site, from another webcomic. Love the content, this has been my favorite so far. Thanks for the laugh.
Reglan Side Effects Lawsuit´s last blog ..Studies Show Reglan Side Effects Similar to Parkinson’s Disease
My last name is Cooper, a maker of barrels. If you count my steadily burgeoning stomach, then there’s definitely determinism there.
As for my actual occupation, I’m a cashier at Target. And for fun, I draw a web comic – about retail. Big stretch there.
I’m strangely hooked on this comic of yours, Adam.
Mark (ex-pat Brit who met his former wife on the Internet and moved to the USA)
Astragali´s last blog ..Paper or Plastic? for 20100303