More Fun With Names

As I have been many times before, I am outraged by news of press censorship, in this case, in Venezuela. I read this morning in Spain's EL PAIS that Hugo Chavez is closing down another group of radio stations. I hesitate to find humor here and don't mean to disrespect Venezuelans suffering under his repression, but I could not help but notice the name of the Bolivarian Revolutionary functionary that announced the latest closings, DIOSDADO CABELLO. In the annals of unusual names (and in an earlier post I cited an article about how Chavez himself had been trying to limit the Dada poetry of creative nomenclature in the country), this one is pretty rich. If you translate it into English it is even more divine - GODGIVEN HAIR.

Naming practices in Venezuela:

http://petitemaoiste.blogspot.com/2007/09/culture-of-naming.html

On the one hand this could be a great slogan for Mirta de Perales' latest product or a fantastic line on a press-release issued by the Miss Venezuela organization to try to draw attention away from the fact that their Delegates usually have cosmetic surgery on every alterable area of their bodies.

The Miss Venezuela organization

http://petitemaoiste.blogspot.com/2009/08/school-of-miss-universes.html

Although I would like to believe that it's those of similar ethnicity to mine - Latinos/Caribbean/Latin American/Spanish people who have such originality in selecting names, lately I'm noticing Anglos can also choose pretty creative and unusual ones.

Those Mazda Gonzalez's out there are not alone. Levi Johnston said in an interview that his son Tripp's middle name, Easton, was after a brand of hockey equipment he favors. But then a few of the Palin's kids have unusual names too. And the WASP Anglos have some naming practices that fascinate me. One of them is the last name as first name, as in great-grandmama's Scottish clan and things of that nature. I have heard of Southern WASP young ladies called Hamilton. And in the New York Times STYLES section, which features those with over-six-figure incomes at garden parties in the Hamptons, and this week, a get together of those with Vanderbilt ancestry. Here, I saw the following first names: Wharton (after his daddy's Business school?), Tucker, Coralie, Dorrance, and my favorite ever, Muffet!!!!!