Didn't see a claim on this in the DE...

[themightyspazz]

...but if somebody's already called this, let me know and I'll take it down.


FOURTH WALL BREAKDOWN, Y'ALL.

Have some coca/eggnog/whathaveyou, compare presents, and enjoy the festivities at the end of the universe.

Comments

[sdelmonte]

"That's a pretty Bad Guy name, at least by Hebrew Bible standards." Alex, like most Jews, refers to what most people call the Old Testament in alternate terms. It's complicated. "I tip my skullcap to you, Cam, then, for these names.

"I always like that sort of name. Obadiah Stane and the like. Was trying to come up with a good name for his father in my Christmas OOMs but that fell by the wayside."

[camwyn]

"Thank you. I like to make good references where I can," says Cam. "If only to make up for the fact that cow number three got dubbed Thelma and Louise, anyway. If the game's going to tell me 'hey, your answers on the aptitude test got your character chosen to be the next chaplain', then there are going to be Biblical names handed out somewhere, and I'm going to do my darnedest to make sure they're good ones."

"For what it's worth, if I have to start naming human characters, the Social Security Administration web site maintains lists of the most popular baby names of both sexes for various decades based on the Census results for those years. Goes back to the 1880s. http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1880s.html is a good place to start for other characters...."

[sdelmonte]

Somehow, the real life knowledge of clicking on a web link is now in Alex's Bar-mind. Weird.

"Grover wasn't more popular? With the rising star of Grover Cleveland? I'm disappointed."

[camwyn]

"Maybe the ladies of the day were afraid the name would preemptively incline the boys towards begetting bastards. Who knows."

[sdelmonte]

"Ellen, do you have any idea what we're talking about? Did your world HAVE a Grover Cleveland?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen rubs at the back of her neck, thinking. "I remember the name," she says after a bit. "From Mr. Brotch's classes. But he was one of those presidents who all kind of blur together after awhile. Was he the one where they had all that trouble with the electoral college?"

"That was Rutherford B. Hayes."

"Oh, right. And... he's not the one who died in thirty days, either."

"That was William Henry Harrison."

"So ... okay, he was one of the ones where the highlight of his administration was that the Earth didn't crash into the Sun, right?" She gets a sheepish look on her face. "I'm sorry. Mr. Brotch probably wouldn't be happy that I don't know the older Presidents better, but... he doesn't stick in my memory as one of the important ones. To be honest, most of them don't."

[sdelmonte]

"There were a few in that era who were so ill suited to the job that it's a wonder the Earth didn't crash into the Sun anyway.

"But Cleveland was a fairly successful president for the era. And the only one to lose and then be re-elected four years later." Imagine if Carter or GHWB tried that stunt.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Oh, right, I remember hearing that that happened," says Ellen. "I just couldn't line the name up properly. I'm guessing that's what you meant about thinking his name would've been more popular? That kind of thing probably takes work..."

[sdelmonte]

"I never know how these things work. Aside from the insidious influence of pop culture." See under: babies named Bella. And Jacob.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods. "Back home I never know if someone I'm talking to is using a birth name or a nickname or some name they changed to as adults or what," she says. "I don't even know what naming patterns there are in the Wasteland at this point, or what they've been doing namewise for the past two hundred years. Vault 101 was mostly just using and reusing the same couple dozen names over and over, from what I understand."

[sdelmonte]

"Isolated communities do that. I think if you look at shtetls - the little towns of Jews in Eastern Europe - you'll find a lot of Benjamin son of Abraham son of Benjamin situations. A handful of names used over and over. My own family did that." Three cousins named Sherman Louis is a sign of such thinking.

[camwyn]

"You got that in my Italian family as well," Cam notes. "Most of the men were named Nicholas. If they weren't named Nicholas they were named Leonard or Raphael or Peter. One of those four, repeatedly, from what I remember. That was Abruzzi for you."

[sdelmonte]

"Halfway to a TMNT set. Bing might be pleased.

"Though of course you would have that, since the Turtles derive their names from Italian artists."

[camwyn]

"My maternal grandfather was half a set all on his own. First name Leonard, middle name (or Confirmation name, I forget) Raphael. Neither an artist nor a ninja, though. You take what you can get, I suppose."

[sdelmonte]

"No way to be sure he wasn't a ninja, though."

[camwyn]

"... point. And he is descended from a man who died jumping out a third-floor window to escape the police at the age of 94; you never know what might run in a family like that."

[sdelmonte]

"Do I want to know what the cops wanted him for?"

[camwyn]

"The building was a brothel. Given the man's age at the time I have to assume he owned it or ran it or something, because Italian police who found a 94-year-old man patronizing prostitutes successfully wouldn't arrest him, they'd shake his hand and take him out for a glass of wine."

[sdelmonte]

Alex stifles a laugh. "A pretty colorful family history. I have a few Jewish mobsters and one Communist turned right wing Republican who ran for Congress, but no one among my ancestors like that."

[camwyn]

"Well, the other side is where the big money is," says Cam. "I'll show you the DVD of the Rex vs. G. Carter papers sometime- Dad's grandfather was basically a Young Indiana Jones character. The man successfully defended himself in court against charges of high treason against the Crown of England for his role in a 1920s labor uprising in South Africa. Talked the court down from 'hang him for high treason' to 'sentence him to time already served for incitement to public violence', despite not actually having any kind of law experience that we know of other than maybe having worked as a policeman in Australia."

[sdelmonte]

"That even trumps the uncle I had who was supposed to be hanged as a deserter from Czar's army and managed to luck out of it." Though Alex has never quite bought that story.

[camwyn]

"Huh. Nice trick- how'd that one happen?"

[sdelmonte]

"They called another name ahead of his. He figured, why delay my inevitable hanging? Only the guy ahead of him - who was somehow not there, probably escaped - was not up for the death penalty. So my uncle managed to get back to Warsaw and shock his family.

"I think he fled to the US right after that."

[camwyn]

"I'd leave in a hurry too, under those circumstances. Good for him, assuming that's actually true."

[sdelmonte]

"It seems possible. No Jew wanted to be in the Czar's army. And no Communist, either. And apparently, you go drafted for 20 years." Another so called fact that seems just a bit fishy.