What's In A Name?

You know what sort of person I don't trust?
Anyone who has a last name for a first name.


Yeah -- you know what I'm talking about, don't you? There's been a troubling trend in this country for the last ten or 15 years of giving kids weird names. My personal hero, the late-great George Carlin, touched on this unfortunate phenomenon in his 2001 comedy special, "Complaints and Grievances," when he expressed disdain for guys named Tucker and Cody; but my issue in this post today is somewhat more specific. See, George was simply concerned about the prevalence of "goofy names" for kids, whereas I am more particularly annoyed by the fact that many children today are being given LAST NAMES for FIRST NAMES.

Now, I don't mean to be close-minded, but I do, to a certain extent, believe in maintaining respect for a few specific and time-tested, name-related, traditions. For instance, I say that a man should never take on the last name of his bride when getting married (there's a word for fellows who do so, and it begins with the letter W...or maybe P), and I support the notion that children should be given names that have existed in the popular consciousness for at least 100 years (*Note: see the disclaimer at the bottom of this entry). I mean, my name is normal, and just look how well I turned out!


So, yes -- I happen to frown upon weird, "modern" names. To me, a young whipper snapper should be called something traditional, like "Michael," "Matthew," or "Helmut." The tried and true first names that have been handed down over hundreds of years work just fine, and I can't help but roll my eyes when I hear of some dude with one of them fancy, newfangled names, like "Tanner," "Taylor," or "Tyler." Those are supposed to be LAST NAMES, man! Why would a parent want to name their kid all backwards like that? Tyler is weird enough, but just wait until kids are being called, like, "Baker" or "Jones." I bet it'll happen one day. "Hi, I'm Jones McMannis, and this is my friend Tucker Rodriguez. We both had parents who really liked to hog all the last names."

Additionally, when I find out that an expecting friend plans to name his or her child something strange, I am not shy about urging them to do otherwise. "Yeah, I'm thinking of naming my baby Gemini or Dakota," says a female friend, and I'm like, "For the love of God, no. Those are STRIPPER names!" You name your daughter something new-agey like Dakota or, say, Astrid, and you're setting her up for a lifetime of daddy issues and abusive relationships. Why not something nice and traditional, like Melissa, Kristin, Mary, Gertrude or Agnes?


But, again, I REALLY don't like it when someone has a last name for a first name. Did you know that "Taylor" is now the third most common baby's name in America? Well...I tell you what: it isn't, as I just made that statistic up; but if it was, I'd be really annoyed. I mean, you can't even tell what SEX someone is when they're named "Tyler" or "Taylor." I don't want to have to live in some horrifying world of chaos in which a person's first name doesn't even offer clues regarding their gender.

See, a person is supposed to have TWO names -- a "first" and a "last" name. The first name should be quite casual, like, say, "Steven," "Charles," or "Wilhelm." It's the title you use for someone in normal, relaxed conversations. A person's LAST NAME, on the other hand, should sound more technical and perhaps kind of ethnic. It describes what sort of background the individual comes from, and one has no control over what last name he or she is given. Sometimes, a last name may also serve as a noun, verb, or adjective in regular conversation. We all know what last names are. There's tons of acceptable ones, from "Brown," to "Hernandez," to "Bernhardiner." Whatever. As long as it works.

The PROBLEM is when yuppy suburban parents decide to use Brown, Hernandez, or Bernhardiner as the FIRST name for their kids. That's all wrong. No one should ever have "Fifer," Clemens," or "Knusperhauschen" written on their McDonald's name tag.


I cannot take someone with a backwards name seriously. You know, if your name is, like, "Tyler," then all I can think about is US President John Tyler, and the famous slogan used in his vice presidential campaign, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." When a person's first name has got me thinking of historical trivia, I get all thrown off and lose interest in the conversation. I mean, I hate to beat a dead horse here, but why do you have a last name for a first name??? Did your parents get confused or something?

(Take "Richard" here, for example. A nice, upstanding young man with a traditional name.)

I will not watch the Tucker Carlson show; I cannot screen the films of Taylor Lautner; and I shall never enjoy the musical stylings of Taylor Swift (although, admittedly, even if she were to be called "Becky," I still wouldn't listen to her). Oh, and do you know who I REALLY can't stand??? CNN anchor Campbell Brown. Yup. Hey, first of all, Campbell is a last name...and secondly, it just sounds masculine to me. Like if anyone were to be named Campbell, it would have to be a man. You can just hear it in the way the word is pronounced. It sounds manly. So, basically, this Campbell Brown person on the TV has a totally fraudulent name. Don't believe anything she says!

And speaking of journalists, I remember a controversy some years back involving a New York Times reporter named Jayson Blair who was busted for falsifying several stories. It was kind of a big deal at the time -- Blair was a huge embarrassment for The New York Times because it's a big shot, snobby news organization, and he duped its editors while COMPLETELY FABRICATING reports. The NYT bosses acted like they were shocked and horrified when Blair's shenanigans were uncovered, but I wasn't surprised at all. You know why? Because the guy spelled his name as "JAYSON." See, "Jason" is not supposed to have a Y, and it should have been obvious from the get-go that Jayson Blair was a total fraud. The moment I saw that misplaced Y there in his name, I would have tossed his resume in the trash basket (or, in the case of The Times, tossed it into the hybrid energy-producing, biodegradable recycling bin with a no smoking sign on it).

Yeah, people may scoff, but the inescapable fact is that, as usual, I WOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT. I would have recognized Jayson Blair as a BSer at first sight, and there would have been no scandal.

So, to expecting parents, I say this: just ditch the wacky plans to name your kid "Androgina," "Skyler," or "Tanner," and go with the less uncomfortable Nick, Anthony, or Hans. Remember that you're setting up your offspring for discrimination from idiots like me if you opt for the more modern names. *Oh, and one quick disclaimer to avoid upsetting anyone: all of the stuff I wrote above applies only to people who are Caucasian, and those who have never read this blog. In other words, minorities and present company excluded.

Anyway, speaking of nonsensical drivel, here's a "psychological thriller" about a mental patient.

The Jacket (2003)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366627/


Netflix description:
John Maybury's masterful thriller stars Adrien Brody as Jack Starks, a Persian Gulf War veteran who has lost his memories to amnesia. When Jack is accused of a heinous killing, he realizes he must find a way to prove his innocence. Desperate to unearth clues about his past, he seeks a controversial treatment that allows him to go back in time -- which turns out to be a heart-wrenching decision when he realizes he's destined for tragedy.

I should begin by noting that the only reason I ever paid attention to this film at all is that it features the English actress Keira Knightley. See, around the time that The Jacket came out, I was (I believe) clinically obsessed with the poor rose, and as a result have an all-too complete knowledge of her films. This is one of the less-good ones.

The Jacket is about a soldier in the Persian Gulf War named Jack (Adrien Brody) who gets badly injured in the opening scene. While on his way home, he gets mixed up in a highway robbery/murder, and sentenced to hard time in a mental institution. Jack is innocent, but since he's struggling with bouts of amnesia, it's hard for him (or us) to piece together exactly what has happened.

In the nut house, Jack becomes the subject in a series of bizarre experiments being conducted by one of the facility's doctors. The doc's idea is to strap psychotic patients into straight jackets and place them in a sensory deprivation chamber...just to see what happens, I guess. Now, something like this can't come without unexpected side effects, and in Jack's case, one of them happens to be time travel. Yup, every time he's sent into the chamber, he wakes up, like, four years into the future.

During one of these visits, Jacks meets up with a sassy, but depressed, young lady named Jackie (Keira Knightley) who lets him crash at her apartment for no apparent reason. Turns out that she is actually the daughter of the woman he was convicted of killing, now all growed up. Jack tells Jackie everything, and (again for no apparent reason) she agrees to help him clear his name. Of course, matters are complicated by the fact that, in this FUTURE reality, Jack is already dead -- Jackie shows him documents proving that he was shot trying to escape from the mental home some years prior. Now Jack has to prevent a tragedy by time traveling back and forth between the reality in which he's institutionalized, and the reality in which he's hanging out with Keira Knightley (er, Jackie). CAN he unravel the mysterious circumstances of his own death? WILL Jackie be able to expose the cruel experiments being done by the nut house staff?? WHAT the heck is going on, again???

Well, that's the problem with The Jacket -- it just makes little sense. I mean, is Jack really supposed to be a time traveler, or is he just nuts? And what is the deal with his insane doctor??? The film jumps between so many alternate universes that we aren't given much of a chance to figure these things out.


The Jacket is a mess of interesting ideas that are not satisfactorily explained or developed. It's well-acted and stylish, to be sure, but fundamentally, the movie is nonsense. Like Donny Darko, or Jacob's Ladder, The Jacket makes us think long and hard about what we've just seen...however, unlike Darko or Ladder, it just doesn't offer us characters interesting enough to make the deliberations worthwhile. I mean, REALLY -- Jack isn't anyone to write home about, and his predicament is too darn complicated.

Keira K uses a passable American accent in this one, but the more dramatic scenes involving her character make us cringe (like when she gets angry and screams "GET OUT!!!" at Jack). I only remained engaged because I thought SHE was hot, not because the film was good. Even the much-hyped "sex scene" between Keira and Adrien Brody ends up being a text book example of lazy, uninspired directing. I hate bad love moments. You know -- the curtains blow...there's candle light...someone gets kissed on the chest....Totally bland and half-hearted. You can't even SEE anything!

Totally disappointing. The Jacket may have a strong cast (oddly enough, Khris Kristofferson as the good doctor provides this picture's best performance) and an interesting concept, but its bad direction kills the whole experience. You may watch it and walk away saying "Whoa!" to yourself, but the film's surface "mind screw" should wear off quickly, and you'll soon look back on The Jacket as an unnecessarily jumbled maze masquerading as art; an "Emperor's New Clothes" sort of movie. Strip away the confused veneer, and it's little more than a rather boring series of audio and lighting tricks. Meh.

2 out of 5.

b.