I lived the years between the ages of 5 and 15 in three modes: outside the house with a beach to roam and unending hours in which to roam it; inside our house with usually unspoken but nevertheless significant disfunctionality; and - most briefly but most intensely - in the basement children’s ward of Tacoma General Hospital.
During those years, wherever I was, my name was Richard, as it is now.
But at the end of 9th grade - junior high in those days - my family decided to move away from the beach to a house in Tacoma’s west end, a move that forced me to go to high school, not with all my earthly friends, but where I knew almost no one.
I battled against the move, screamed and tore around the house like my hair was on fire. But, of course, my parents won. So before our physical move - to spite my parents and to claim a sort of faux independence - I made a move of my own, by kicking “Richard” to the curb and calling myself “Dick” everywhere I went.
I even wrote, “Dick lives here, and he isn’t going anywhere!” on my bedroom door.
In school, too, I promoted my name change so successfully that at a going away party for me at a friend’s house I got the gift of a thin tie clip - to go with the thin ties that were all the rage back then - with “Dick” written on it in cursive. Some of those who gave it to me said they had wanted to inscribe “What a” on the tie clip before my new name, but it was nevertheless the first public recognition of who I would become.
‘Dick, man, no more Richard! How cool is that?’ said the voice inside my head.
Okay, maybe it didn’t say ‘man,’ or ‘cool,’ but, along with the tie clip, the name stuck. I was “Dick” in high school, where I lurked way out in the suburbs of popularity, stayed clear of tough kids, fell for girls I simply saw walking down the hall, and rode endlessly up and down 6th Avenue between Busch’s Drive-in and the Frisco Freeze.
In college and in the Peace Corps in Korea, during five years in Japan, and two sojourns to Africa, “Dick” was not only my nom de guerre, but it also pretty much fit me. I admit to hating its genitalia signage, but we live with what we must, especially if it's a name we chose for ourselves.
But then, around the time I started publishing fiction, maybe because it was my nom de plume, or maybe because it had been lurking in the lagoon of my psyche since those miraculous days of childhood, “Richard” swam back up and insisted on primacy in my nomenclature. I still answered to Dick with friends from certain times of my life, but “Richard” was my name again from that day forward.
That’s my Richard/Dick story, simple as it is, but how about you? Did you change your name in order to proclaim a new direction in your life?
If so, how did it work out?
Before you answer that, there are loads of literary goings on about names, all more substantial than my own. So, in order to make this essay a bit more fun, here are a few that we can question or comment on.
“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though Romeo?
I confess - shamefully - I was out of college before I knew that “wherefore” meant “why.” Were you as thick-headed as me?
Juliet goes on to utter one of the most famous lines in all of Shakespeare, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But would it? Would its fragrance and unfolding beauty survive a name like “Dick?” Or “Skunk?” or “Cabbage?”
2. “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”
That’s Humbert Humbert waxing on about a girl otherwise known as ‘Dolores Haze’ in Vladimir Nabokov’s great novel. He’s a pedophile (Humbert Humbert, not Nabokov ) He does have a way with words, though, don’t you think?
Alas, the novel would likely not find a publisher today.
3. “O my Luve is like a red, red rose that’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody That’s sweetly played in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear, were your name apple pie.”
Those are the opening lines of “A Red, Red Rose,” by Scotland’s most honored son, Robert Burns. Can you guess which line I fiddled with to make it serve my point?
4. “I’m Nobody, Who Are You?” by our country’s most famous “Emily.”
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
I like this poem for how much it gives us so quickly. And the best word in it has to be “June,” for its usurpation of the expected “Day.” She cheated a little with ‘Bog,’ though, when ‘Hog’ was so readily at hand.
A bog’s admiration? Maybe not. But the admiration of a hog would be sublime.
5. Who said the following, when and where (and sometimes why?)
A. If you'll be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost pal. I can call you Betty, And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al.
B. Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are.
I want to hear your answers to all of the questions in this essay, the rhetorical ones as well as those final two.
But be careful. Trickery abounds.
As for names, I prefer Richard to Dick. And, cousin, remember the names my sister tagged us with. Might just leave them in the dust.
My parents emigrated from Northern Spain to the US in the early 1950s. My mother had many sadnesses related to her leaving her homeland, and among those was the loss of a part of her identity via the ‘loss’ of her surnames. In Spain, it is customary to use two surnames -- one from father and one from mother. In the US, the only name my mother heard was her married surname. To honor my mother and her legacy, I use both my surnames, los dos apellidos de mi padre y madre.