Vortigern

Vortigern. Fritigern. Bigelis (Dickelis?). Athanaric. Chnodomarius. Raidagaisus. Stilicho.

Laurie.

Is it just me, or have we lost a little something when it comes to naming people?

The Romans, the Greeks, the Goths, the Huns, even. Yes, EVEN THE HUNS. Masters, all of them, of finding a bunch of sounds that go good together.

Marcus Aurelius--now, that's the name of a poet king, a philosopher king. You can bet that peasant householders would flee when some guy named Magnacar or Vulfoliac showed up on the horizon. Today? Oooooh, nooooooo, run for your life or bow deeply from the hip: It's STEPHEN HARPER!

The worst part about going by the name of Laurie is that people assume it's Lori. I hate the name Lori. It sounds like a human resources administrator. Someone in too much blue eyeshadow. Or someone who likes to chug Bailey's from little airplane bottles while wearing peep-toe shoes.

When I was eight, I wished my name were "Amy," God knows why, but probably because it assumed that I would also have a different last name, which was the part I really disliked. I remember jumping on Ann's bed after school, and as we were jumping, little pellets of cat food and dried cat poo bounced up from her bedspread. Her hair was a tangled mess and her clothes were in threads--her prosperous parents were busy being prosperous and weren't paying much attention to the children they discovered living in their basement. My friend wanted to change her name from "Ann" to "Penelope"; we both thought it was pronounced Pen-a-lope, like cantaloupe. There was dried ketchup on the ceiling right above her bed. It spelled part of the name "Graig," which was her brother's name. He got as far as "Gra" before something called him away from his artistic task. Every time I think of Ann, I hear the sound "GRAAAAA," and hope she got far away from those people as quickly as she could.