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Go Home A Holy Aptronym

TIMOTHY NOAH APRIL 26, 2012

A Holy Aptronym

BY TIMOTHY NOAH

One of my lifelong hobbies has been to collect "aptronyms"--the newspaper columnist Franklin P. Adams's term for people whose names were curiously appropriate to, or provided ironic comment on, their occupations. I even once began, in a moment of madness, an alphabetical directory. Today reader Neil Hebert alerts me to the existence of a Jesuit priest, now deceased (and a candidate for future canonization) who back in 1998 penned an essay defending the priesthood's vow of celibacy ("Celibacy And The Catholic Priest"). Celibacy, this priest argued, frees one from "the worries and cares that necessarily go along with marriage and rearing a family":

I just can’t imagine living in wedlock and living also as I do, a 17-18 hour working day. There is freedom of mobility, to go wherever there is hope of God’s greater glory and the good of souls. [...] He has freedom of interest to devote himself exclusively to his priestly ministry and not be bound, as he would be in marriage, to preoccupations with so many things that would, therefore, divide his interests between the priesthood and his duties as husband and father of a natural family. 

My work over the years has brought me into frequent contact and intimate relationships with Protestant ministers. I cannot tell you, and I quote literally, how many have told me, “John, I envy your celibate life. I love my wife and my children, but I often find it literally impossible to be what my people want me to be and my family, to give them the time and attention they deserve.”

The priest made an eloquent case for a doctrine whose wisdom even many Catholics have a difficult time believing in. If only his name hadn't been Father John Hardon.

Update, 5/6/12: NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" tries (and fails) to stump Dick Cavett with "Father Hardon," but they get him on some other aptronyms (which they call "aptonyms") from my Slate days.

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33 comments

When I was a child (in the 1950s) my family had a vacation home in a fishing village on the gulf coast. We often ate a small restaurant that specialized in local seafood (including turtle, my favorite, which is no longer legal). Anyway, our favorite waitress was a young woman named Ima. She ended up marrying the young man who owned the local gas station, Bill Fish.

- rayward

April 26, 2012 at 3:22pm

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Ray - I served with a young lady who married (and took the last name of) a Sergeant Major Woody. Her first name? Anita. When she introduced herself it sounded like something Bart Simpson would get Moe the bar owner to call out to his patrons.

- Tristan

April 26, 2012 at 3:33pm

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I have long known of Father Hardon. When my younger brother was in college in the mid-1970s, he took a religion course and two books in the assigned readings were by Hardon - a two-volume survey of world religions. My brother gave them to me shortly after he took the course, and I have had them in my library ever since. I read those volumes somewhere back in those years and they were quite good. The bookcase that these volumes are in is not in my main bookcase in our living room, but rather they are tucked away in a bookcase in a corner of our house, and I haven't even thought of them for a long time. Your post brought back more memories of my brother to me; I just commemorated the fifth anniversary of his death on Tuesday. He shot himself to death at age fifty in a supermarket parking lot about fifteen miles south of where I live. He was a hypochondriac and I am pretty sure he was also an obsessive-compulsive. He was extremely tormented but he is tormented no more. RIP.

- liberalref

April 26, 2012 at 3:47pm

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The first Italian-American to play baseball in the major leagues was Ed Abbaticchio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Abbaticchio). Nicknamed "Batty", of course. And University of Washington's football team used to have a punter named named Jared Ballman. In case you ever decide to add a sports and leisure section to the dictionary...

- dfisman

April 26, 2012 at 3:56pm

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The first Italian-American to play baseball in the major leagues was Ed Abbaticchio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Abbaticchio). Nicknamed "Batty", of course. And University of Washington's football team used to have a punter named named Jared Ballman. In case you ever decide to add a sports and leisure section to the dictionary...

- dfisman

April 26, 2012 at 3:56pm

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We had Dr. Smelsey, a foot doctor.

- Nusholtz

April 26, 2012 at 4:02pm

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I once worked with a hardcore Army brown round. His name was Sergeant First Class Deatherage.

- Konstantin

April 26, 2012 at 4:37pm

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When my partners and I started our own firm and bought a set of used Southern Reporters, they were stamped with the name of the original owner, William Crooks. A lawyer, of course.

- rayward

April 26, 2012 at 5:11pm

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http://www.murfreesboropost.com/boner-rejects-sexual-harassment-allegations-cms-30900

- gdhorowitz

April 26, 2012 at 5:24pm

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Getting on in years and need a gynecologist in Lansdale, Pa.? Here you go: http://www.amh.org/lansdale/find-a-physician/doctors-public-profile/?id=593363

- Timothy Noah

April 26, 2012 at 5:31pm

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I just took a quickie nap and I managed to have a violent nightmare about drill sergeant Deatherage. Thanks for sparking horrid memories, Timothy. By the way, what's the opposite of "aptronym?" Cuz whatever it is, it applies to Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest), he of the vicious elbowing.

- Konstantin

April 26, 2012 at 7:03pm

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Somebody should introduce Hardon to Greybush. Their's could be a long and deeply felt relationship with more than enough staying power to get through those dry periods.

- rayward

April 26, 2012 at 7:05pm

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Current Oakland A's closer is the Aussie, Grant Balfour. Not the name you want in a relief pitcher.

- MJMCKAY

April 26, 2012 at 8:45pm

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At the hospital where I trained there was a Dr Doctor as well as a Dr Killem. Following upon Tristan, I went to high school with a girl named Anita Peter who satisfied her need with my friend Scott's, who was himself saddled with the surname Passwaters, which I'm sure he did several times a day. Oh, and where I went to college there was an ornithologist named Prof Byrd. All true.

- AaronW

April 26, 2012 at 11:03pm

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And when you're an ICU doc or nurse you do tend to think a little different about patients with names such as Crump--"crump" being medical slang for sudden deterioration--and Dyer, both of which I have seen.

- AaronW

April 26, 2012 at 11:09pm

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Now I'm remembering another perfect alignment of patient names all on the same side of the same sixteen-bed unit at the same time: Hogan, Schultz and Klink. Seriously, I don't think I've met another Klink ever, and yet the one time I do, it's together with a Hogan and a Schultz. It was hard to get through rounds without somebody saying, "I know nosink! No-SINK!" in answer to a question. The theme song got a good workout too...da da da da, da-de-dum-dum daaa, de-de-dum-dum daaa...

- AaronW

April 26, 2012 at 11:19pm

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I love the idea of Dr. Doctor cursing the day Robert Palmer was born.

- SEBASTIANSALING@HOTMAIL.COM

April 27, 2012 at 5:23am

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In a more whimsical vein, there's a well regarded researcher in sexual dysfunction named Joseph LoPiccolo

- miceelf

April 27, 2012 at 11:48am

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Is this a self-parody... from the self-described atheist named Timothy Noah?

- mr_rationale

April 27, 2012 at 12:18pm

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These things pop up all the time. Here's one from today's news in sports: The late Herb Caen of the SF Chronicle used to devote some of his precious three dot journalism space each week to what he call "name freakisms". So happy to now have the much better "aptronym" supplied by Mr. Noah.

- Haole45

April 27, 2012 at 12:20pm

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Well, shoot, the link didn't paste in. So here's a bit copied from the story, which appeared on AT&T Yahoo! sports news this morning: "Whitney is a great name for a diva, not so much a football player. Not that anyone tells that to the Houston Texans first-round draft pick of the same name. For Whitney, the Illinois defensive end taken No. 26 on Thursday night, has a surname that's as menacing as his first name is gentle. Whitney Mercilus. That's pronounced the way you think: MER-sil-us...."

- Haole45

April 27, 2012 at 12:25pm

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Hey rationale, that was actually pretty clever. Not bad.

- Tristan

April 27, 2012 at 12:43pm

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How about "Mr._Rationale"?

- Nusholtz

April 27, 2012 at 12:56pm

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Good catch, Nush. I was always explaining (trying to) to Mr_Rationale that his name did not imply that he was "rational" -- rather, it kept reminding folks that a "rationale" is something else entirely. Never stuck.

- ironyroad

April 27, 2012 at 1:06pm

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Clever, Tris? Not at all, actually. I am a raging non-believer but sometimes I use religious terms in a metaphorical sense. This is done by people who aren't religious, and not infrequently. Also, the Heritage staffer undoubtedly hasn't heard but there are conservatives and probably, more numerously, libertarians, who are not religious believers. None of my libertarian friends are religious at all. This apercu is too deep and nuanced for rationale, though. I take it from the above comment that rationale is religious. It wouldn't at all surprise me; she is strongly attached to pie-in-the-sky notions, like the perfection of markets and the perfect - or near-perfect - distribution of income along meritocratic lines. I have some prime real estate in the Sahara Desert that I would love to unload on rationale.

- liberalref

April 27, 2012 at 1:38pm

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LibRef -- you don't make enough money to buy real estate in the desert. And your powers of induction are as frigid as your last Keynes blow-up doll. Did you know Keynes was a pedophile? Is that the basis of your attraction to his theory/plastic coolness? Also, wrong about the market are perfect point. Do you know the real assertion about markets that libertarians make? Probably not.

- mr_rationale

April 27, 2012 at 3:09pm

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"When my partners and I started our own firm and bought a set of used Southern Reporters, they were stamped with the name of the original owner, William Crooks. A lawyer, of course." There is a law office across the court house up the road proudly displaying a sign saying only "Lynch Law," the principal of which is a feller named "Lynch."

- IowaBeauty

April 27, 2012 at 4:47pm

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In high school, I had a classmate named Paul Urin. Unfortunately, I never found out what career he followed, as there were a lot of fine possibilities, all of which he probably pissed away. I also studied under a Dr. Doctor (an education PhD instead of a medical variety). I don't know the practicioner personally, but not a vast distance from where I live is a chiropractor named Dorothy Tenderholt. It's a bit more of a reach, but I am also taken with a dentist in the area named Dr. Killpack.

- skahn

April 27, 2012 at 5:32pm

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No one who has not gone through life hearing lines about "teetering on the brink" can possibly understand what the late Father had to go through.

- timteeter

April 28, 2012 at 12:31pm

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Major Major Major Major

- roidubouloi

April 28, 2012 at 3:53pm

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I know a Rabbi Pious and podiatrist names Dr. Schumacher

- shellski

April 29, 2012 at 9:47am

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I know a Rabbi Pious and podiatrist names Dr. Schumacher

- shellski

April 29, 2012 at 9:47am

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I know a Rabbi Pious and podiatrist names Dr. Schumacher

- shellski

April 29, 2012 at 9:47am

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