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It should be a senior's right to have any name I want
© by Mike Keenan 
I've been thinking of changing my name; the main reason is Google as all I get are thousands of articles about the hockey coach who has led almost every team in the NHL. He can't keep a job. I certainly do not want to be confused with him.
I think that when one becomes a senior citizen, we have the right to change our names to anything we want. Call it the Witness Protection Program or whatever. There just comes a time when you need to be somebody new. I've often coveted the seeming anonymity of a prison number, say 675488. So when I get one of those annoying calls from somebody trying to sell me a jiffy mop or a face lift or a free trip to Florida, I can tell them they literally have the wrong number. It doesn't have to be a number. The trend, particularly amongst soccer stars, is to adopt a single name. Plato and Mozart get by with one word. So does Lassie. Actually, I don't know many animals that enjoy two names. There's Beyonce and Bono, Cher and Christo, Halston and Hammer, Kreskin and Liberace, Madonna and Oprah, Pele and Ronaldo, Sade, Seal, and Sinbad, Teller and Twiggy and of course, Yanni. Each has its own appeal but I think I'd like to stick with two names. It must be awful for the Spanish. They combine all of the family names into one, long monstrosity which must make introductions, particularly in wedding lines, agonizingly labour intensive. I'd like you to meet Manuel Cortez Jorge Estaban Columbus Roderico Cervantes Miguel Coloroosa, one might say. That's where nicknames come in handy. They are particularly useful with professions if you forget names. When I visit the doctor, particularly at a clinic, how am I supposed to remember his name? On my way out, I simply say, "Thanks, doc." When I call in an electrician, you guessed it. He's "Sparky." Back in school, the mean kids used nicknames such as "four-eyes, train-tracks, tin teeth, motor-mouth" and "fatso." I'm starting to qualify for the last one, but think I can do better. Lots of famous people changed their names. Writers are no exception. Samuel Langhorne Clemens became Mark Twain. Eric Arthur Blair became George Orwell. Thomas Lanier Williams inserted Tennessee and became Tennessee Williams. So maybe next week, this column will be written by Newfie Mike or B.C. Keenan or Permafrost Sunstroke. I like the sound of Newfie Mike. B.C. Keenan and Permafrost Sunstroke sound way too formal. They should be conducting a symphony or performing a literary reading on CBC. Politicians excel at changing everything around to suit their interests so a name is small potatoes for them. Around the time of WWI, George V, King of England had a big name problem. The King and his children bore the titles Prince or Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Duke or Duchess of Saxony. The King had brothers-in-law and cousins who were British subjects but who bore German titles such as Duke and Duchess of Teck, Prince and Princess of Battenberg, Prince and Princess of Hesse, and Prince and Princess of Schleswig-Holstein. When H. G. Wells wrote about Britain's "alien and uninspiring court," George famously replied: "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien." Thus, on July 17, 1917, George V appeased British nationalist feelings by issuing an Order-in-Council that changed the name of the British Royal House from the German-sounding House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor, naming his family after the castle in which he made his decision. I have visited our Parliament Buildings in Ottawa on many occasions. So, rather than my hockey-affiliated surname, I might follow George V's example and revert to The House of Harper. Sounds suitably dogmatic and kingly in a minority government kind of way. The House of Layton has a nice socialist ring to it. Forget The Houses of Ignatieff and Duceppe. No charisma there. Now for a first name. What about Harpo Harper? Nice alliteration and even some entertainment value as well. |
