Admirable Names

Since one of the rules of journalism is Get the Names Right, and since names are so integral to everyone's identity, I have a weird fascination with some of the monickers that pass by our eyes. Matt Schudel already told you about Mr. Gray, born of a woman named Black, and married to a woman named White. I wrote one today of a fascinating gemologist whose maiden name tips you off to a famous survivor.

Then there is Kathryn Matilda Artie Melisha Indiana Hyatt Rawlins, named for all her aunts.

This name falls trippingly off the tongue: Val Filice , founder and head chef of the Gilroy Garlic Festival "who regarded garlic ice cream as perhaps a novelty but never a joke."

Sammy Duddy, certainly no fuddy-duddy, was "a colourful Belfast character who combined membership of one of the city's most lethal paramilitary groups with a career as "Samantha", a highly suggestive drag act."