ich bin ein d'foogy

So, I've been thinking recently about the possibility of changing my name to Heeblewenzinko D'Foogy. No, there isn't really a realistic possibility of my doing it. But I will admit to getting some amusement from the thought of going in to HR at work and telling them that I've made such a change. And of having such a name on the plate by my office door. And on memos.

But I can't do it. There are two main reasons:

• Blair wouldn't like it, and my plan is to stay married to her until I die.
• I need to keep my job. I wouldn't get fired for such a name change, but I don't think it would be a good career move.

So, unless I find myself single and financially secure enough that I can afford to be laid off, I'm not doing it. That said, I have, over the years, used variations of the name (e.g., Hobart Del Foogy, H.D. Foogy, Heeby Der Foogowitz).* But "Heeblewenzinko D'Foogy" is the gold standard of potential new names for me.

And if my friends don't want to learn how to say "Heeblewenzinko," I'll tell them they can call me "Zinko" for short.

For other examples of ill-advised name changes, see this article.

*I have also used a variety of other names -- usually for writing letters to newspapers -- that were unrelated to the phenomenon that is "Heeblewenzinko D'Foogy." The following is a partial list of ones that I remember offhand:

Ling Soo O'Reilly

Ken Thister

Joseph E. Thumpe

Millicent Dixon

Tyrone Laces

Q. Winston Brockmoore

Masanori Murakami

Jonathan Schmeckelieber

Angel Mavet

those magical moving hyphens (lawrence-hilton jacobs edition)

Anyone remember Welcome Back Kotter? It was a crappy 1970's sitcom that was really popular but hasn't aged well. It's probably best remembered as the vehicle that gave us John Travolta. Here's the theme music:

While you're watching that, please notice the credit for the character Washington. It's Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs. With a hyphenated first name. Like the country singer, Mary-Chapin Carpenter.

Yet now, if you look for Jacobs on the intertubes, he is listed everywhere* as "Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs." With a hyphenated last name. The first time I noticed that -- I was looking him up on Wikipedia -- I thought I must be misremembering. But, no...finding the video of the old WBK credits told me that I remembered correctly.

In fact, the Wikipedia entry lists his parents as Hilton and Clothilda Jacobs. So it makes sense that his last name is Jacobs. Not Hilton-Jacaobs. Further, since his father's first name is Hilton, it's easy to surmise that his parents named him Lawrence-Hilton, partly after his father.

So when did the hyphen move and why? Is the whole intertube community suffering from memory loss? Or did he actually change his name? And if the latter, then why is that not listed on his Wikipedia page?

These are things I need to know. Also, why did the hyphen disappear Mary-Chapin Carpenter's name?

*Well, almost everywhere. In putting together this post I looked him up on IMDB and found that, there, the hyphen is in his first name.