Monday, January 25, 2016

What’s in a name?

     Is it mere coincidence that so many people have names befitting their occupations or personalities?

     The name of the man who’s in charge of a process at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to produce rare fissionable plutonium-238 is Bob Wham. (My daughter Lisa works at Oak Ridge.)

     A now-retired lady at my local small-city airport—whose job as Terminal Manager in part was to smooth relations between general aviation pilots and commercial airline personnel and maintenance folk and security people and fixed base operators and the airport board and the public—is named Kathy Sunshine.  I’ve never seen her without a smile.  Everybody likes her.

     The heiress to the Wrigley fortune is named Helen Rich.  (She owns Medallion Media and bought my first three suspense novels, for which I thank her.  She’s not only quite wealthy, but also is a nice lady.)

     There are many more examples of names associated with occupations and/or personalities all around us.  Seemingly almost too many to be mere coincidence.

     A list of aptronyms—and inaptronyms:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym


Phil




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