The Strange Name Movie

1

[mellow piano music]

- Hey, Erica.

My name is Lisa,

and I'm calling

from a video production

company in Boston.

- We're producing

a documentary on people

with interesting

and unusual names.

- And we were wondering

if you would be interested

in sharing some of

your experiences

having the name

Bill Cosby.

- I know that you pronounce

your name Bails and not Balls.

- Is Ronald McDonald in?

- Hi, I'm trying to get in

touch with Dr. Bonnie Beaver.

- Hey, this message is

for Mr. David Boring.

- Hello, this message

is for Jack Goff.

- I'm wondering if you've

had any experiences

with your name.

I'm not even sure exactly

how it's pronounced.

[woman] It is as you would

imagine. Hore.

- Okay, all right.

Have you--

...problems with it

all the time. All the time.

- [Narrator] Most of us

have names that are neutral,

they don't provoke dumb

jokes when we're introduced.

As kids, we didn't get

mocked at roll call.

But many names

are not neutral.

They suggest

a negative attribute,

or have sexual connotations.

The name may already belong

to a famous or

a notorious person.

It may, for any

number of reasons,

quite simply be funny.

- My name is Mark Gotobed.

A smile will come

across people's faces,

and they will say,

"Hold on.

"As in go to bed?"

And I will say, often now,

"Yes, just like you're

telling your children

"to go to bed."

- When I'm addressed in court,

things are kind of formal.

Just as I would say

Your Honor or Judge,

I'm addressed as

Attorney Doktor.

My name is Joseph Doktor,

and people call me Joe Doktor.

You'd get a lot of people say,

"Well, you know, if

you became a doctor,

"you'd be Dr. Doktor."

Well, yeah, I was a great

disappointment to my mother

because I became a lawyer

and she really wanted me

to be a doctor.

- My name is Linda Slutsky.

The name is from Russia,

and their name was Slutzky,

[spells name aloud]

And then one day,

my family decided to

change it to Slutsky.

First time I realized

the name was unusual

was when I was

in high school.

A friend of mine

said, "Slut,"

and I went, "What?"

And then all of a sudden,

a group of boys was

following me down the hall,

and I had to run

down the stairwell.

And I didn't know

what was going on.

I went home and I looked

it up in the dictionary,

and lo and behold,

I found out it meant,

I think, a whore?

I was devastated 'cause

I wasn't like that.

I was like a really prudish

little girl in high school.

- My name is Stuart Putz.

I've had the name

since I've been,

I think, around

three months old.

I was adopted.

There probably was some

heckling here and there,

but I've always been

a pretty jovial kid

as well as like to wrassle,

so if somebody gave me

too much of a hard time,

I'd go have a good

rough tumble with them,

and that usually would stop.

- This is my adopted mother,

Jeannie Escobar Putz.

This is my grandfather,

Clifford Putz,

with my cousin Lonnie Putz,

who is the son of Larry Putz.

This was on the Putz Ranch.

Probably the biggest

thing I've heard is,

"You're such a putz!"

Okay. All right.

Guess that's my last name,

so yes, I am a Putz.

But you know, some

people look at that as

you're a klutz, or

you're a failure.

- We're the Clutzes.

- We're the Clutzes.

- Why did you do this?

- I was voted Most

Clumsy in high school,

so you know, that was

the superlative I got.

It was the only

superlative I got,

so clumsiest person

because of my name,

not because I'm

generally clumsy.

All the way through

grade school,

I kind of, kinda had that

little pit in my stomach

anytime it was gonna

be named in an assembly

or at roll call or

anything like that.

-span style="bodyStyle" [Narrator] Having

a name like Clutz or Putz

might not seem

like a big deal,

but imagine having to brace

yourself for a reaction

every single time you

introduce yourself.

Imagine always

having to plan ahead,

devise strategies,

prepare a ready comeback

for the inevitable

lame remark.

Problems that a Smith or Jones

never even has to think about

loom large in every social

or professional interaction.

But there's no support group

for people with strange names.

You're on your own.

It's every schmuck

for himself.

- My name is Howard Schmuck.

The first time

I became aware of it,

I was in ninth grade.

I was reading Harold Robbins'

book, The Carpetbaggers,

and schmuck

was in there a lot,

and I had no idea

what it was meaning,

so I went to

my English teacher,

and I asked him.

And he said

it's time you knew.

It's humorous when

I am picked up

at a major airport

and my last name

is on the board

for the driver.

People are looking

and looking to see

who's gonna actually

walk to that name.

- My name is Greg Boggis.

I imagine it's probably

in the Urban Dictionary

under a number of

unsavory things,

but you know, it's

the family name and I like it.

- Everyone thought

they were original

in calling me Crapo or telling

me that I was full of crap.

Where I grew up,

my dad owned

a funeral home in town.

At Halloween, people

would put the letter Y

over the O, so it would

read Crapy Funeral Home

as everyone drove by.

People seemed to have

a lot of fun with that.

And I asked my parents

why we had to have

the last name Crapo,

and in fact, in town,

it was a well-known name.

We'd been there

for generations.

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