Tuesday, April 27, 2010

What's in a Name?

Since we are away all day, we tape (note my old fashioned terminology; I even call a CD or digital recording a record) Oprah and often watch the show over dinner. (We don't have kids, so we're allowed to watch tv while we eat. And the tv is not literally over our dinner plates either — just in case you were wondering).

Today's episode featured two people who had tracked down others who shared the same name as themselves. One guy wrote a book about a man with the same name who had lived only a few blocks away in a tough neighborhood when they were boys. The similarities ended there as one guy ended up as a successful author and the other in prison.

Another fellow made a video of six others who shared his name. He travelled around the world to meet these folk individually, and they ended up meeting as a group in a town which shared their last name.

A somewhat similar experience once happened to me. Sort of.

One day I got an email from a guy in Australia who shared my full name, or at least the same first and last name. He also emailed several others with the same name. For a short while we had a little AC club, but it didn't last very long. There were two AC's from Australia: the mining engineer who wrote to me and an emergency/health worker. There was also a climatology professor from the USA. Interestingly (to me, at least) as a geographer (teacher) my field overlapped, at least tiny bit, with both the engineer and the climatologist. There were others, but that's the core group in my memory.

That was well over a decade ago, but even now, the originator and I occasionally correspond: a fact which came in very handy when a daffodil called Allyson made a trip to Australia. While backpacking through that country and using her credit card to pay most of her bills, the credit card company sent a renewal card to our house. On a certain date, the card that she had been using would become null and void in favor of the new card.

What to do? Allyson was travelling and had no mailing address, but she was heading up the eastern coast of Australia at the time toward Brisbane where this other AC lived. We contrived with that AC's approval to send the cards to his place and have Allyson the daffodil pick them up when she passed through.

It all worked out. They met. The daffodil Allyson got her card, and the Aussie AC even took her out for breakfast and a tramp through the rainforest.

So, that's what's in a name, or what was in the notable AC name at that time.

(Now you have a little more information about the daffodil called Allyson from last week's post. Not a lot: but you know she is my daughter and travelled to Australia. However, you should also know that I have been playing with you, and that she isn't really a daffodil — I was just making a dubious link to that other post. Sorry for driving you crazy. It's what I do best. Perhaps, there will be more to tell some other day.)

9 comments:

Garnetrose said...

I have never met anyone with my name. I think it would be quite interesting. I don't know how far I would go to meet them but it would be fun to find out what they were like. The story about Allyson was very interesting and I had to laugh about it. Of course, I did not assume she was a daffodil but i bet she is as pretty as one in her dad's eyes.

Bernie said...

I watched Oprah today as well, I enjoy her shows.
It was nice that another A/C was able to help out your daughter.
I'm not sure if anyone has the same name as me or not, perhaps my married name but definitely not my maiden name, I was in grade 3 before I could actually spell it....LOL.......:-) Hugs

Mara said...

I've only ever met one person with the same last name (who wasn't related to me) and we worked together. He was about my age and everybody was always wondering whether we were married! I've yet to meet someone with the same first name, either the full or the shortened version. Not even my direct family share my first name, since it came from my mother's side of the family!

Diana said...

It is odd meeting someone with the the same name. I recently met someone online with my same name,spelling and all. The strange thing is that she has their family reunions just a few miles from our house. We're probably all related in some ways. I've not met many Diana's, quite a few Diane's though. Love Di ♥

Ruth said...

I have met two people with my same given and married name, both of them elderly and dying in the hospital. I would be shocked to find someone with my given and maiden name as my family name is so rare. We were the only ones in the Toronto phone book. (Tolman)

Barry said...

That was very kind of him. You ACs are a good group of guys.

Kathy Trejo said...

I enjoy Oprah too. I hear shes going to do her show in the late evenings here in California.

Have a good day :-)

Anonymous said...

AC,
What an interesting post. Years ago, the medical doctor for the Indianapolis 500 had the same name as mine. That was years ago when I was much younger. :) The Bach

Donna said...

NO one has my name...LOL..thank Goodness. It was a sweet thing to do Ac, the credit card...
and I forgive you for...oprah...Hahaaa..
hughugs