I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. People are attracted to professions by their own name. That’s why there are a disproportionate amount of dentists named Dennis, lawyers named Lawrence and judges named Judy.
But I believe it goes even further than this. Your own name attracts you to other things, not just professions,
My favourite author is Larry Niven. His science fiction is riddled with many interesting and mind bending ideas for the future. Heretofore, I believed my liking his stories was an unbiased thing, based totally on merit. Now, I see that I am just a ball of conceit, picking someone with my own name to be my favourite writer.
Anyone who knows me well, knows that my favourite musical artist is Yes. Of course I love the song Roundabout which is their biggest song. But the second song I liked by them was Starship Trooper. Starship Trooper is divided into three sections. i) Lifeseeker, ii) Disillusion and iii) Wurm. Notice that Wurm is spelled like the last half of my surname. I guess I’m still a ball of conceit.
I could have picked Larry Gowan as my favourite musical act. But he only had 3 or 4 songs that were played regularly on the radio. However, when I first got into residence back in the late eighties, someone said I looked like Gowan. Then they asked me my name and I of course said Larry. So I got the nick name of Gowan.
Later, for one of those 3 or 4 songs on the radio, he teamed up with Jon Anderson of Yes for the song Moonlight Desires. So even here, we’re back to Yes.
Now I’m just wondering how I can get the Russ part of my last name involved. But I don’t know any celebrities named Russ.
Maybe I can say that the show Friends is my favourite sitcom because it features a character named Ross. But really its only about my 5th favourite sitcom.
Maybe I can say that my favourite place to live is the Rustbelt. Kitchener, Hamilton and Toronto used to be the three corners of the Golden Triangle which was where half the manufacturing in Canada was done. Yes it rusted for a few years but Toronto survived by being the centre of Canada and surpassed Montreal for being the largest city in Canada. Kitchener used its technology assets to become viable again. I’m not sure of the situation in Hamilton, but I don’t really think Ontario considers itself to be a Rustbelt area anymore.
Maybe I’m being persnickety by not accepting the spellings of Rust and Ross as an adequate substitute for Russ.
Maybe I’ll find a Russ someday and become that perfect ball of conceit that, it seems, I always wanted to become.
