h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In retrospect, this thread migh confuse those that did not know that my name IRL is Duncan Jones.

The reason that people have surnames, it seems to me, is that their surnames identify and group them in some way...but mine does not. Think of the obvious - that I'm Welsh right? Not at all.
OK then, I come from a long line of Joneses? Nope again - If family folklore is to be believed I am called Jones because my great grandfather decided that being mistaken for a Welshman and thereby claiming to be in an essential industry was infinitely favourable to dying in Flanders as an honourable "Mr. Baker"
Darn right he was too.

So my surname does not serve the purpose to which it is put. What other purpose can it have? Can I ditch it and what would happen if I did?

Well, what would be wrong with Duncan Baker?

The answer is - yes you can ditch it, but be prepared for a lot of long conversations with people who have to type things into databases, (hey - you know this already); and be prepared to have the same conversation again and again with people you meet in RL.

Having had a lot of the latter ("why are you called Ben" "that's an unusual name" "blether blether, joke joke, patronise patronise") I can assure you that there are significantly more interesting ways of filling up the first 10 minutes of any social encounter.

Personally I think you would be nuts to go for no surname. But that is just My Humble Opinion.

What does the future Mrs Ahem think?

a girl called Ben
("my that's an unsusual name, why are you called Ben?")

*Never backward about coming forward, but with your best wishes at heart*

Well, "..", I can see you were none too thrilled with "Fullstop Period".

Before I leap in and suggest you take your fiances name - a real thrust for unconventional behaviour which I'm sure your great grand-daddy would heartily approve - I had better ask again what her last name is. Some women marry just to be rid of a rotten handle.

Duncan Baker has an honest forthright ring to it - but you'd want to change it again if you ever come to Canada, a nation of donut eaters and donut shops, where dunkin' donuts in your coffee is a favourite passtime - to such an extent that one of the half dozen national retail chains of donut/coffee shops is actually called 'dunkin donuts'.

How about something with the 'spearcarrier' flavour like Chuck Lance? Or Pike Rankin? Rusty Spears? Stan Deliver?

Shakespeare?

Duncan Shakespeare?
Hmmm.. puts me in mind of 'the scottish play'.
Which takes us (well me anyway) to 'hubble bubble toil and trouble' and once more back to Happy Happy and Twinkle Twinkle.

Oh dear, we're not being much help here are we Duncan Duncan.

I would be seriously worried if you changed your surname to Donuts. Well, you can take the palindromic approach and be Duncan Nacnud.

I'm not being very helpful either, am I?

-Twinkletwinkle Littlestar?

At least one generation further back and it was the Boer War, but since it was over a hundred years ago......()

Twink: Yep from the little poem 'twinkle, twinkle little star'. I like the way you made Littlestar one word. Twinkle Littlestar, or Twinkle Twinkle, take your pick. If it was Twinkle Twinkle you could use as a signature to differentiate yourself from Wand'rin star who uses one .

W-: - the African connection in your family gets ...what was the word Pooh used ..mysteriouser and mysteriouser. No wait that wasn't Pooh it was ..oh dear ..oh bother.

How about Duncan Duncan-Jones or Duncan Jones-Baker. The hyphen thing is always very impressive. Maybe Duncan Duncan-Baker-Jones ..oh, there's so many permutations!

I think I may change my name to Mr. Testdata on the grounds that I would then get vaste sums of money deposited into my online accounts by not very careful system test staff.

I was browsing in a bookstore today and by a (pick one) strange/happy/unlikley/ coincidence, found this:

"You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was." - Irish Proverb

I'd never heard of this Irish Proverb fella before. Hmmm...

I think he was a distant cousin of Chinese Proverb.

Irish proverb - wasn't that by Irish Whiskey and Ancient Proverb?

Ok some thoughts from my world of sport:

- Brazilian footballer's often only use one name. Hence Edson Arrantes do Nascimento became Pele. Other cool names used include Zico, Socrates, Rivaldo or Tostao. Maybe try for sometthing exotic like this.

- cricketer Donald Bradman's son changed his name in 1972 to John Bradsen to avoid the publicity of his father's fame. He apparently said "I am an individual. Not a social souvenir".

- similarly Jordi Cruyff, son of Dutch genius Johan, has Jordi put on the back of his shirt to avoid assocations with his father.

Finally and maybe the best suggestion is to do what Australian rules footballer Gary Hocking did. He changed his name to Whiskas for a week in a $200,000 sponsorship deal with the catfood manufacturer. He went on to earn an extra $4 million in publicity. Maybe you can become Duncan Hewlett-Packard or Duncan Microsoft Word ...

BBS

And strangely, David Bowie's son, Zowie Bowie changed his name to Duncan Jones to avoid publicity!

Shhh!