A Boy Named Sue

I just saw this great movie, "Something The Lord Made", in which one of the major characters was named Vivien. Mind you, this is not a woman, but a guy (played by Mos Def). My first thought was how odd to name a guy "Vivien", but then [I laughed out loud] as I remembered "Vivien" from the old BBC comedy series "The Young Ones".

There are other gender-inappropriate male names that come to mind. "Marion" is the real name of John "The Duke" Wayne; "Beverly" is the name of one of the Mantle twins (from the movie "Dead Ringers"); "Francis" we also know as "Old Blue Eyes", "Maria" is the middle name of Klaus Brandauer, the guy who portrayed Otto Preminger in the Halle Berry production of "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge"; there's "Gale" Harold of QAF fame; and "Camille" Saint-Saens is one of my favorite classical composers.

In some of these cases, there is a difference in the spelling (Vivian vs. Vivien, Francis vs. Frances, Marion vs. Marian, Beverly vs. Beverley), but still, why would a caring, feeling parent lay this burden on a little kid. I'm sure [the kids] suffered many a school-yard beating ...or, as in Johnny Cash's tale, learned to be really, really tough.

Even with the gender-specific spelling variation, many women use the male spelling (i.e. Vivien Leigh, Marion Ross, Francis Andrews, Beverly D'Angelo). There for awhile, it was fashionable to use [masculine] surnames as women's first names. Remember the characters "Bailey Quarters" from "WKRP In Cincinnati", and of course, "Murphy Brown", and her mother "Avery", (wonderfully played by Colleen Dewhurst). And there's the real-life "Kelly Bishop", who once having danced in a chorus line, now plays Lorelai's mother. So...

"What's in a name?
that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;"

Quote of the day: "Never trust anyone who functions from noble motives. The good are never sure, and in the end, they'll let you down."