Book documents kids burdened with wacky monikers

Here’s a name joke to get us started on a new book about funny names:

Two ladies were driving around a neighborhood looking for a friend, Gladys Boyle. They spotted a mail carrier, a middle-age man who was walking slowly, as if in pain.

The lady on the passenger side rolled down her window and asked, “Excuse me, sir, do you have a Boyle on your route?”

The mailman seemed confused, then said, “No ma’am, I always walk like that.”

Now, take it easy, all you Boyles.

In fact, anyone saddled with a name that drew playground taunts should pick up “Bad Baby Names” (Ancestry Publishing) and see how much worse it could have been.

Culled mostly from U.S. Census records, the names are a testament to parents’ ignorance (or cruelty) and the bad luck of being born to a father named Feigenbutz or Plopper.

Because access to more modern census records is restricted, most of the names were documented between 1790 and 1930.

Authors Michael Sherrod and Matthew Rayback divide the names into categories, such as people named after places (there’s a “Connecticut Johns” and a “Hartford Lyle”); fictional characters (quite a few “Sherlock Holmeses,” after the detective stories became popular near the turn of the last century); and names that make sentences. These last are among the most unfortunate.

For instance, some parents who named their baby girls “Ima” should have considered their last names. There’s “Ima Mann,” “Ima Bumm,” “Ima Hore” and “Ima Nutt.”

Similarly, those enamored of the first name “Wanna” might have sound-checked it against family names such as “Towell,” “Koke” and “Bath.” Other examples from the book:

Long before Bart Simpson made prank calls to Moe’s Tavern, children were burdened with names such as “Mike Rotch,” “Hugh Jass,” “Ivana Tinkle” and “Maya Buttreeks.”

Think the “Boy named Sue” had to be tough? How about Cinderella Liverotti, whom the authors note was, “sadly, a man, and a coal miner at that.”

Babies named after food include “Lettuce Crum,” “Hoagie Hoagland,” “Onion Critzer,” “Mustard M. Mustard” and “Tomato Billips.”

To emphasize the veracity of their research, the authors include photocopied names from census documents.

They acknowledge, however, that people have lied to census takers and that recording officials make mistakes.

Let’s hope so.