The Strange Name Movie Page #2

- The history behind

my name is honestly,

it's kind of funny.

We got in the back of a cab

after asking a half-dozen locals

around Dublin and Cork, like,

"You guys know any Mullarkeys?

"You know anything about 'em?"

No. So we got in this cab.

You know, it was the oldest

cab driver in the country.

I swear to God.

He was like, "Mullarkey?

"I think most of you

died out in the famine,

"or left the place."

You ever heard that expression,

"You're full of mullarkey"?

So he says that,

back in the day,

the Mullarkey Clan,

not wanting to pay

taxes on British pounds,

would melt down the coin,

and coined their own

currency, the mullarkey.

Then when they went

and tried to use this coin

in other villages,

they wouldn't take it.

They wouldn't accept it because

you were to be put to death

if you were found

with the currency.

You're full of mullarkey.

Get outta here.

That's about all we know

of our family history.

- My legal name

is Adelaide Smoki Bacon.

I was at

Brookline High School.

It was kind of a verbal

bullying that I took

when I would come in to

watch the basketball games.

There was a Smoky Kelleher,

who was a famous

basketball coach,

and I would walk in

and I would hear,

"Smoky Joe, rah rah.

"Smoky Joe, rah rah."

The idea that I was being

called Smoki at that time,

this was like 1943, 1944,

women who smoked were

considered women

of the streets.

And that would just

totally destroy me.

- [Narrator] An unusual name

is far from the worst handicap

to have as you go

through life,

but it is something you

have to deal with every day.

It's something you

had to face as a kid

when you wanted

desperately to fit in.

An unusual name can

make you stronger.

It can help you develop

a sense of humor.

But make no mistake,

your name can influence

your personality

and affect

the course of your life.

- I have spent

the last decade studying

and writing about names.

I look at how we choose names,

how we perceive them,

and how name trends

change over time.

When people ask me

what I do,

and I say I'm

a baby name expert,

there's always this

moment of confusion.

What could there possibly

be to be expert about?

Names are just names.

But then, as soon as you

get talking on the subject,

everyone has

a thousand stories.

Everyone has

a thousand opinions.

And everybody realizes

that their name,

and the names of

everyone they know

send enormous

signals to the world.

- I was just Jeff, right?

Until I went out into the

real world after high school,

and college, et cetera,

and met other people that,

I became Studley.

And there was some pressure

to live up to a name

that just immediately has

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