Dick’s ahead of the name game
STEP aside, Rusty Kuntz. Move along, Dick Trickle. There’s a new candidate for the world’s most hilarious name.
The UK Independence Party has another leader and he’s already receiving global kudos for his name rather than his policies.
He’s called Richard Braine, and it hasn’t taken long for his political opponents to start making jokes about the “Dick Braine” on the other side of the chamber.
I am sure US politician Richard “Dick” Swett is ecstatic about the elevation of Mr Braine to the world’s stage.
Mr Swett was a US congressman for New Hampshire from 1991 to 1995 and then served as the US Ambassador to Denmark from 1998 to 2001. But no one cares about that. When he spoke up recently to endorse Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee for US President, his comments went viral.
“I think it’s absolutely imperative that we bring back civic civility, that we have respect in our political system and, most importantly, that we are able to restore the bond of civic affection for this nation,” Mr Swett said last week while people around the world sniggered about his name.
Civility? Respect? Hell, no. Before long, Dick Swett’s name was trending on Twitter, and not in a good way.
As someone whose initials are SOB, I sympathise.
It’s a bit like Bart from The Simpsons ringing Moe’s Tavern asking for Al Koholic, I.P Freely, Seymour Butz or even Homer Sexual.
It reminds me of the time back in primary school when my mates used to make up fake names and prank call people. This was before caller ID on mobiles — obvs, as my daughter would say. They’d ring up the local pool or library and ask to have their friend Tony Handcock or Mike Hunt paged across the loud speaker.
Then they’d wait a minute and ring back and ask to speak to Joe. Joe King. Get it? Joking.
Bored Panda has a list of the worst names “that make you wonder what their parents were thinking”. They include a fifth-grade teacher called “Mr Perv”, a high-school graduate called P. Ennis and a movie maker called Chris P. Bacon.
Luckily, the list includes pictorial proof or no one would believe any parent could call a kid Jesus Condom, Whet Faartz, Dick Smalley or Crystal Methven.
Same goes for two teachers called Mrs Weiner and Mrs Butt who worked at a Jewish Community Centre school in 1981. Still, I’d prefer to have either of them than Mrs Rape, a kindergarten teacher. Sometimes the joke comes from more than the name itself, like Sam Sung, who works as an Apple Mac salesman.
Other times, the magic doesn’t happen until Mr MacDonald marries Miss Berger and creates a family of MacDonald-Bergers. Or when Rachel Harr marries Daniel Hardy and they become known as the Hardy-Harrs. (These are all real people, I promise.)
There’s Jonny Large, who’s pretty short, Pearse Kenny who keeps getting called Kenny Pearse and Emily Cumming, who carpooled in primary school with a family called Going. True story.
Sport has also given us some ripper names over the years. There’s Gaylord Silly, the track athlete, Destinee Hooker, the indoor volleyball player and Dick Trickle, the race car driver.
It makes AFL players called Wylie Buzza, Steele Sidebottom and Tyson Goldsack look like amateurs.
Baseball still holds the mantle for having the worst names, like Stubby Clapp which sounds more like a venereal disease than the name of a St Louis Cardinals star. Joining him is Rusty Kuntz, Johnny Dickshot, Boof Bonser, Ledell Titcomb and Shooty Babbit.
Having a shocking name can’t be easy. Years ago, I worked with a lovely lass called Anna Cock. I remember how hard it was for her to register for email because her name kept getting rejected as too obscene. Another friend, whose last name was Dickmann, was planning to change it as soon as she was legally able.
This brings us back to politicians. Richard Braine is in excellent company with Cameron Dick (Labor, Qld), Young Boozer (Rep, Alabama) and Kinky Friedman (Dem, Texas).
They’d know monikers don’t always matter. There’s a Democrat from Virginia who didn’t foresee her campaign for Congress would be derailed by a saucy photo scandal. Her name? Krystal Ball.