2239. What’s in a name?

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When Mr and Mrs Flowers had their first baby they thought it would be cute to name their daughter after flowers. They called her Rose Violet Flowers. The second child was also a girl, so they named her Iris Holly Flowers. Three further daughters followed. To be consistent they stuck to the flora. There was Myrtle Cherry Flowers, Poppy Jasmine Flowers, and Lily Daisy Flowers.

When Mrs Flowers was expecting her sixth – “This is definitely going to be the last” – she hoped for a boy. And a boy it was! They named him Rock because it was a good strong masculine name and offset a little the perceived femininity of the surname. He had no middle name; just good solid Rock.

Needless to say, the plot didn’t work. He was known at school as Pansy Flowers and he hated it. Others taunted him with Rock-a-bye-baby Flowers. On the day he turned eighteen he officially changed his name to Jack Gunn. After that he didn’t know who the heck he was and went around bullying everyone. He twice got sacked from work and was going to do himself in. That’s when he met Annie.

In the end Annie got her Gunn. They named their three boys Top, Hand, and Six.

17 thoughts on “2239. What’s in a name?”

  1. umashankar

    The pendulum of rubicon switches from one extreme to the other down the generations, but that has got nothing to do with the irony captured by the interesting story here. Out here in the rural hinterland it was not uncommon to find kids named ‘Collector’ and ‘Magistrate’, but I was quite amused when one of those grew up and christened his kids ‘Beggar’ and ‘Burglar’.

    Note: Warren Hastings introduced the office of the District Collector in the Judicial Plan of 1772 mkb. By the Judicial Plan of 1774 the office of the District Collector was temporarily renamed Diwan. Sir George Campbell, lieutenant-governor of Bengal from 1871-1874, intended “to render the heads of districts no longer the drudges of many departments and masters of none, but in fact the general controlling authority over all departments in each district.”

    The office of a collector during the British Raj held multiple responsibilities – as collector, he was the head of the revenue organization, charged with registration, alteration, and partition of holdings; the settlement of disputes; the management of indebted estates; loans to agriculturists, and famine relief. As district magistrate, he exercised general supervision over the inferior courts and in particular, directed the police work.[5] The office was meant to achieve the “peculiar purpose” of collecting revenue and of keeping the peace. The superintendent of police (SP), inspector general of jails, the surgeon general, the divisional forest officer (DFO) and the Executive Engineer PWD (EE) had to inform the collector of every activity in their departments. (Wikipedia)

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