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Friday, April 17, 2015

Sprinter names 2015

The final rankings for the 2015 indoor track season are in. As usual, there are a lot of uniquely creative names among the runners in events ranging up to 400 meters.

A few of my favorites among the men:

Romel Burns. Hard not to think of Nero fiddling.

Trabien Whitehurst. Je suis très bien, merci.

Trey'l Beasley. The path to athletic glory is a long and dusty trail.

Osiris Nicholson. Osiris was the Egyptian god of the afterlife. (Would you name your kid "Hades?")

Juston Christian. He got to the finish line just on time.

Jamique Mitchell. The meek shall inherit the earth.

Arun Rambhadjan. See ya later, I'm going for a run.

Salaam Horne. Isn't that a little like naming your child "Hello"?

Kobe White, Kobe Smith. Mr. Bryant has now been around so long that current high school seniors were named after him.

Kwincy Hall. Ah, his parents were Anglophiles.

Seifuddin Black. Just don't say "fuckin' black."

Addrecus Eddington. An abacus that performs only addition.

Kaulen Jenkins. Callin' all sprinters to the starting line.

Saint Jacob Diodonet. Weren't his parents getting a little ahead of themselves?

Kris Mus. This name was my favorite. I had the feeling that Kris might be white, so I looked him up. Sure enough, here he is (on the left):


Not only does this young man evoke Bing Crosby, he also proves Johnny Cash ("A Boy Named Sue") right. By bestowing upon their son a jokey name, Mr. and Mrs. Mus actually gave him, to quote Cash, gravel in his gut and spit in his eye: Kris grew up to be a bold guy willing to take the brothers on at their own game. Good for him, and good for his parents. And maybe, good for all the other guys named above.

Certainly, none of these nationally ranked sprinters lack for athletic prowess.

A few of my favorite female names:

Sydnei Murphy, Sydnee Minor, Sidne' Williamson, Cydney Christian. Their parents all had an affinity for Australia, but, somehow, didn't quite make it.

Lanae-Tava Thomas. (Do you hear "larvae"?)

Pharist O'Neal. Mirror, mirror, on the wall….

K'Lynn Beal. Well, it's better than K'Lytt.

Xaria Elliott. Exotic? Exactly.

Abra Granger. Maybe her middle name is "Cadabra."

Ke'niya Smith. "If you get fresh, I can knee ya in the balls."

Nichyria Byrd. Is this pronounced like Nigeria?

T'Reyah Johnson. T Rex Johnson's queen.

NeeAsia Watkins. Oh, so that's where she was born.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

My friend knew someone named La-ia

pronounced Ladashia

best i've ever heard

John Craig said...

Anon --
The name itself is not that bad, other than it's "I'll lay ya" connotations. (Really, other than the unneeded dash, it's the same as Princess Leia's name.)

But the pronunciation sounds like an afterthought, because Princess La-ia herself was not satisfied with her name.

Steven said...

I like some of the African American names. Jamique and ladashia sound good to me.

I once saw a list of names that parents attempted to name their child but were not allowed. One of them was 'sex fruit'.

Also, in freakonomics, they tell of
two black brothers in New York. One was called 'winner' and the other 'loser'. Winner had a huge criminal record and loser was a police chief.

John Craig said...

Steven --
Just read about Winner and Loser. Amazing story. Naming your child "Winner" seems somehow naively aspirational, but naming another child "Loser" seems weirdly uncaring. But, I guess the boy-named-Sue effect kicked in in that case.

Anonymous said...

Pardon me for posting something completely and totally OT, but I didn't know how else to contact you.

This story seems right up your alley and I'd love to read your analysis.

In short: a passed out girl on spring break in Fla. is gang-raped on a beach in broad daylight with hundreds of on-lookers. Of course, the whole thing is filmed.

However, if you click on the link below, you will see the first picture is stock footage of "spring breakers" -- white, clean-cut, your basic Abercrombie & Fitch wannabes. Keep reading though, and discover that the suspects are African-American, as are the revelers.

Why the disingenuous first photo?

http://www.inquisitr.com/2008559/florida-gang-rape-panama-city-beach-spring-breakers-watched-sexual-assault-on-the-beach-sought-by-police/

Happy Spring

Gardner

John Craig said...

Gardner --
Good to hear from you, I was afraid I'd lost you.

You've basically answered your own question, and as a former and now sometime reporter, you know how the media works: it's all propaganda. Some news is fit to print, other news not quite so much.

Why the disingenuous first photo? Because The Inquisitr, like every other publication out there, is terrified of being accused of racism, and also, as good liberals, they want to sustain the dominant narrative that race has no bearing on anything other than white people being racist against others, especially blacks.

Anyway, that's hardly any sort of original insight on my part, anybody who follows the news with an open mind is pretty much aware of this, whether or not they admit it.

I've read a couple articles about this assault previously, but have not been able to find what the race of the victim is. Do you happen to know?

Happy Spring to you, and always happy to hear from you.

Anonymous said...

You are so concerned about sociopaths, but what would you call an individual who invites a teammate to his Belmont home to ridicule said person in front of your Harvard professor father and Japanese mother and siblings?

John Craig said...

Anon -
I had a total of maybe eight teammates out to my house while I was in college. There was always a certain amount of bantering that went on with that team and I engaged in it like everyone else, but I certainly never invited anyone out specifically for that purpose.

I"m dying to know which of the eight or so guys you are.

And if you think ridicule is a sign of sociopathy, well, this post is exhibit A. But it's not. When you hear that I"m a serial killer or pathological liar, please let me know.

John Craig said...

PS -- This was all forty years ago, but I can only think of five teammates who ever came to my house for dinner: Hess Yntema, Tom Wolf, Myles Standish, Brent Haywood, and Wes Raffel. And I can't remember making fun of any of them during those dinners. The only person I remember ridiculing was my father, who at one point asked, "So what it's like being a college student these days?" (I pointed out that that was an impossible question to answer given that they had never been college students in any other era.)

Anyway, dying to know who you are if you have the courage to give your name.

Shaun F said...

My job is to administer maternity and parental benefits to a large organization of say 8000 people. Everyone is attempting to come up with some unique name for their child. Teddy for example. I've seen a lesbian couple name their child Adam. Kali was the name of a daughter I saw yesterday. I asked the mother of the child - do you know the origins of the name "Kali" and what it stands for? Still waiting for a response. In the 6 years I've done this job - I have yet to see a John, or for that matter Steven. Plenty of Jaxxson though.

John Craig said...

Shaun --
I'm a little confused: when you say "Teddy," do you mean that that was the child's actually legal name, a opposed to Edward or Theodore? And Adam is a normal name….

That's a funny story about Kali. Six years on a job like that will really open your eyes.

Shaun F said...

John - Teddy was the actual child's legal name, on the birth certificate. Adam is not as much of a common name as you'd think - but I found it ironic - as the child was created in vitro, and Adam was the first man God created. Open my eyes, oh yes – you learn a lot about human nature - but only to want to close the door and lock it - firmly.

John Craig said...

Shaun --
Aha, gotcha. I've known of kids legally named Jake (not Jacob) and Mike (not Michael), and these were supposedly among educated people.

And okay, I get it about Adam. It wasn't an uncommon name back in my day, but yes, there is something about being born in vitro that makes him seem like the first of his kind.

And yes, ha, close the door and lock it is right. But as you know, that sort of realistic attitude is frowned pom these days, you're supposed to show more appreciation of our wonderful diversity.

Dave Moriarty said...

I worked with a guy in India who was advised of a problem who advised it was not a concern his name. Menot tiwari

after that I said I was not going to worry either

John Craig said...

Dave --
I wonder if his real name wasn't Alfred E. Newman.