Madoff Made Off with my Money

When I guest blogged last June, I posted about tautonymically named people (e.g. Billy Dee Williams, Ford Madox Ford, Humbert Humbert.) It made me want to research other people with oddly themed names but I didn’t really have a good idea for a post until I played tennis with my friend whose real name is Ace Allgood. Ace serves many aces and is a good tennis player.

Thinking about that led to me to the concept of nominative determinism, at least one guy’s idea that a person’s name plays a causal part role in the development of one’s job or other important attributes of life. Similar to this are aptronyms, “names that match its owner’s occupation or character, often in a humorous or ironic way.”

A few examples illustrate the idea: Vikings field goal kicker Ryan Longwell, Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell, Astronaut Sally Ride, prostitute Mi Sook You, and poet William Wordsworth.

The works of Charles Dickens are filled with great aptro-named characters: Pecksniff, M’Choakumchild, Bounderby, etc