So why is it 'Hillary,' and not 'Senator Clinton?'

I noticed years ago that our culture is more inclined to formality where men are concerned, and presumptively informal with women.

In this election very few people speak of "George"; even his detractors prefer to denigrate him as "Dubya" or "Shrub." No one has referred to Republican candidates as John, Mitt, Mike, Ron or anything else, nor have we referred to John or Barack. I don't see a particular reason to refer to the senator as Hillary either.

Why? Because it's more respectful, more formal, and more befitting the relationship we have with her. The Clintons are not close and personal friends of ours. They are not likely to come over to our houses for a cup of tea. When you get down to it, the chances the average American has o meeting them hover somewhere slightly above zero.

Sen. Clinton may be using her first name for a variety of reasons: to differentiate herself from her husband, to create the feeling of intimacy and familiarity with voters, or because it conjures more pleasant associations for her than the name of a small township in New Jersey off Route 78.

It's not as though referring to the senator from New York as Hillary clears up ambiguity. Given the context of a presidential primary, I don't believe anyone is uncertain who was being referred to when we use the name "Clinton." Should confusion arise, there there are plenty of ways to make the distinction: Sen. Clinton and President Clinton, Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Clinton, former President Clinton and President-elect Clinton, and so on.

I think it's better to show Clinton the same formal respect that we show to her opponents and her other peers. Don't call her Hillary without her direction to do so.

call me 'mister'

When I was a first-year teacher, I generally called the principal Mrs. Martineau in front of the students and Joann in private, but in time I found myself calling her Mrs. Martineau more often than not.

It resurrected in me the old habit of calling adults Mr. and Mrs. My wife thinks I'm old-fashioned for it, but I really don't want our daughter calling adults by their first names. It creates a false familiarity and inappropriately levels the field between people of widely disparate social status. Calling a teacher the more formal "Miss Smith" instead of "Miss Rachel" reminds the child that the teacher is not a buddy or a peer, but someone to be treated with deference and respect.

Maybe we don't need to be as formal as other cultures, where all social interactions are last-name-only, save for the closest familial relations, but I think we've gone too far in the other direction.

I always insisted on being called by my last name when I was a teacher. I didn't discipline anyone who called me "Dave," but I reminded them they were supposed to call me "Mr. Learn." The worst reaction that ever got was from one of the more immature children, who insisted that if it was respectful for him to call me Mr. Learn, then I should call him "Mr. Cofre."

Don't remember how I resolved that one -- I might have told him that the honorific was because of my position, but I also might have started calling him Mr. Cofre until he begged me to stop.

I never called any teacher in high school by first name, except for Tom Montleone -- and I should add that he probably was the least respected teacher in the school too. In trying to be our friend, he lost claim to the respect he was owed as our teacher and instructor.

In college it seemed weird to have faculty insist on being addressed by first name. A few years a professor of mine whom I still keep in touch with periodically asked me to call him "Howard." I can't do it; he's still "Professor Marblestone" to me.

'the two towers' extended DVD

I'd be waiting for the extended DVD in any event, but the news that the extended footage includes scenes that will explain the change in Faramir's characterization, has really cinched it for me.

And on a completely random side note, I wonder how the LotR movies are affecting the names people are giving their children. A few years ago, "The Matrix" led to a burst in the use of "Trinity" as a girl's name, and "Morpheus" actually had five uses in a single year, enough to put it on the list of active names. (No joke; somebody for some reason actually keeps track of the names people give their kids, probably for demographic purposes, and cuts it off at five. "Morpheus" had been unknown as a name since mythological times, and now it's back.)

We named our daughter Eowyn, but that was just because we love Tolkien's books and we picked the name nearly three years before the first movie came out. But I'm wondering now if she's more likely to run into other girls named Eowyn, with or without the diacretic, and if she's going to bump into a boy named Faramir and have to enjoy the obvious jokes. As long as his name's not Grima, I suppose ...

baby names

Back when we were expecting Evangeline, we shared our name choices with our families and received a litany of horrors that would be visited upon our daughter if we gave her such a name.

I actually hung up on my brother during one such discussion because he was being so stinking rude. As a result, we didn't tell anyone the names we picked out when we were pregnant the second time, even though some family members and all our friends had been much more appreciative of the name we gave Evangeline.

The irony of course is that we decided almost right away that if we had a second girl, we were going to name her Rachel Helena, after my paternal and maternal grandmothers -- about as inoffensive a name choice as you can get. What can you possibly find to object to in someone naming a child after his grandparents, especially when they had such traditional names?

I shared the story with two of my friends online, and they both have opted not to tell anyone their name choices either. I must tell my brother that he has ruined it for three families, not just our own.

My younger brother, Ward, actually had been fine with the name Evangeline when we first mentioned it. When I told him that we weren't giving out names for Baby No. 2, he immediately started pleading to be told anyway and found himself extremely frustrated when I refused to budge. Our discussion went like this:

"Is it a Bible name?"
"Well, I guess it depends on your perspective."
"Are you naming the baby after anyone?"
"I suppose that depends on how you look at it."

When Rachel was born last Halloween, I called Ward and told him we had named her "Spock." It took him a little while, but he finally decided I was (probably) pulling his leg, and asked what her name really was.

In retrospect, I wish I had thought to tell everyone a different name when we called to let them know.

(Oh, and of course, true to form, Natasha's grandmother found a way to complain about "Rachel Helena" and what an ugly name it is.)

Keeping the baby's name a secret

Everyone wants to know what we're going to name the baby. Good luck with that. We're not telling.

Before Evangeline was born, we called her "Quaggy," short for "Quagmyra." That comes from a situation about four years ago when friends of ours were expecting their second child, and hadn't settled on a name. Since they were open to suggestions, I suggested Quagmyra, which became insanely popular afterward, even more than the other favorite, Lucifera.

The baby's current place-holder is Coyoge.

"Coyoge" comes from Wile E. Coyote, and is pretty much how Evangeline pronounces that name. She understands that Coyoge is in mommy's belly now, but for some reason she has decided that "Meep" is in my belly. (It's a learning process. Meep also has been known to zip from one belly to another.)

We have real names picked out for Coyoge, depending on whether the child turns out to be a boy or a girl. We're not revealing them until the baby is born because of the tsursis we got from relatives who didn't like the name Evangeline and kept telling us in hopes that we would change our minds.

My younger brother is especially distraught that we won't tell him the names we've picked since neither he nor his wife objected to "Evangeline," which they thought rather lovely anyway. I reminded him that two other members of our family registered their disapproval, and he should take his frustration out on them.

To be honest, when Coyoge finally is born, I'm tempted to repeat what I did when Evangeline was born and leave people in the dark a little longer. When I called my parents to share the news about her, I told my mother, "The baby was born at 3:36 p.m., and weighs 8 pounds 14 ounces. The baby is 22-and-a-half inches long, and both the baby and Natasha are fine."

I kept delaying telling her the baby's sex as long as I could. I think this time I'll let them know the baby's sex but not what we name him or her.



Copyright © 2002 by David Learn. Used with permission.


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i didn't marry my mother

Do other guys get an odd feeling when they get married and find that their girlfriend now has their mother's name? ("I'm married to Mrs. Learn? But that's mom!") I can't speak for other guys, but that particular problem has never arisen for me, even though my parents are still together after 34 years and four sons.

It was difficult for me to think of my wife as "Natasha Learn" instead of "Natasha Henson," but that has come with familiarity and practice. My sister-in-law Rhonda, however, I still call "Baz" since her maiden name was Bazzo.

I did find it a difficult adjustment to make when I became a teacher and everyone started calling me "Mr. Learn." After all, that was my father's name. The sobriquet soon grew on me, though, and I now introduce myself to small children as "Mr. Learn" and actually instruct my daughter in the ways of Mr. and Mrs.

Never thought of myself as a traditional sort of guy, but it DOES seem more respectful than having her call adults by their first name. I make an exception for friends who become Mr./Mrs./Miss or in the case of close friends, Aunt/Uncle.

global domination agenda: names

In order to prevent unnecessary overuse of given names, as one of my first acts as World Ruler, I will order a global database of names created. This database -- I think I'll keep it Belgium -- will keep an exhaustive directory of all the first names in use, and will check all new entries against that list.

That way, if a parent picks a name that already is in use, the computer will spot the overuse and suggest an alternative, viz., "We're sorry, but that name is already in use. Can we suggest Dave3124?"

After all, what's the point in ruling the world if you can't be petty every now and then?

I think I also will institute a fine on parents who give their child a perfectly acceptable name only to always call the child by a derivative of that name, and then complain when the child refuses to go by the proper name. Such is the situation with my wife, whose birth name was "Anastasha" She has never been called "Anastasha" in her life -- not by anyone left alive, anyway -- and when we married, she had her married name set as "Natasha," since that's what she's always been called.

Upon reflection, I think I'll also have to mandate penalties on parents who don't consider the ramifications of initials when they name their children. Quick example: A friend of mine has a foster son named Christian Antonio Jones. Take his first two initials and his last name, and he could start signing things C.A. Jones. Very bad in areas with large Hispanic populations.

Addendum: There will be a $1,000 cash stipend awarded to people who name their children after adverbs, in honor of our trusted minister, Respectfully Brian P. If there is a new global currency, the payout will be one thousand of those units.

The names we give our pets

The dogs I've named all have had literary value behind their names: Ajax and Hamlet.

I was going to name my next dog Strider for a sire or Circe for a dam, but the dog we have came fully equipped. We got her used the pound, and her previous owner had been calling her Sandy for over nine years.

I only named one fish that we had. It was called "Old Fart" because it wouldn't die even though we really wanted it to, since we had decided we'd rather use the aquarium for a turtle.

Naturally, when it did die, my younger brother Ward and I celebrated, and our mother was so incensed we weren't allowed to get anything for the tank for a year.

Crises in leadership today's politicians should face

There are two things that disappoint me every election cycle, without fail.

The first is that we still haven't initiated a hunting season to thin out the ranks. Anyone familiar with the ongoing political process at the federal level has to agree that some thinning is needed. The herd has become so large that politicians are foraging for voters earlier and earlier each year. Some of the most promising candidates are getting bumped off because they can't compete with the less interesting, albeit more powerful, ones. Hunting season is definitely in order.

The second thing that annoys me about elections is that no one tackles the really important issues, the ones everyone really cares about. Most politicians discuss programs and projects that are more involved than quantum physics and less comprehensible than tax laws.

Saving Social Security, paying back dues to the United Nations and gun control are all important issues in their own right, but none of them are issues that really get masses of people up in arms.

Any politician who steps forward with a commitment to tackle these issues is going to get my vote:

1. Stupid holidays. Most holidays serve some purpose, at least originally. Memorial Day has been demeaned to merely the first barbecue of summer, but at least its stated purpose is to remember all the fallen in our nation's wars. What's the story with Columbus Day, anyway?

The whole point of Columbus' trans-Atlantic trips wasn't to seek out new lands and new civilizations or to embark on an age of discovery. All he was after was finding a new way to get to India to avoid the bandits along the established trade routes, and he couldn't even get that right.

Off course by more than an entire hemisphere, Columbus still refused to admit to the queen or to his crew that he was lost.

"I know it's around here somewhere," he'd say in typical-guy fashion, bumping into one Caribbean island after another.

If Columbus at least had taken his wife with him, she would have made him stop at a gas station and ask for directions. Then he could have discovered the alternate trade route and done something worthy of history.

2. Check-out lanes. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I thought the whole idea of an express lane was that it was supposed to go fast. At this point, I'd be happy if "express" meant the same thing in a supermarket that it means to express mail delivery; i.e., it takes less than 24 hours.

3. Tailgaters. In the 13 years I've been driving, I have seen exactly one driver respond to the recommended practice of taking one's foot off the gas and coasting.

Much more frequently, these goobers actually have continued to tailgate me, even when there are other lanes they can move into and pass me to their hearts' content.

4. Police who just want to give out tickets. Most of the men and women in blue I've met are decent folks, but it seems like there's one Constable Elbow in every department.

These are the officers who follow you for 30 miles, just waiting for you to do a California stop or for you to go one mile faster than the speed limit.

One time, I was pulled over in Bridgewater, N.J., for speeding, even though I had already had slowed down to the established limit. Officer Elbow pulled me over anyway, and hit me with three tickets.

If the police are that hungry for excitement, maybe they should help thin out the political herd or pull over some tailgaters.

5. Parents who give their children common names. There ought to be some sort of running tally somewhere in Washington, D.C., that monitors name use, similar to the way e-mail providers keep track of user IDs.

If too many people have the same first name, hospitals would have to tell new parents, "Sorry, that name is already in use. Can we suggest Dave3124?"

6. English measurements. There is nothing more frustrating than trying again and again to find the right ratchet socket, only to discover the car manufacturer is still using an outdated measurement system. It's even worse when other parts of the car are in metric.

Nothing tops the recent fiasco around the Mars Climate Orbiter, a $125 million spacecraft of NASA's, paid for with our tax dollars, that burned up in the Martian atmosphere.

Lockheed Martin Co., the contractor for the project, used English measurements instead of the metric ones employed by every other member of the scientific community in the world.

As a result, our tax money is a slagged monument on Mars to the lack of intelligent life here on Earth.

My wife and I have a couple friends who work for Lockheed. The next time I see either Astro or Dan, I plan to hit them on the head with my metric ratchet set until they get the idea.

7. People who complain too much. Enough said.

I should add that I used to be bothered by political posters that say "Vote Drake, Quince and Elwood for Township Council" and put the party mascot on the sign as if that were all that matters.

Such signs say absolutely nothing about who these jokers are or what they hope to accomplish if they get elected. It does, however, say that they frivolously spend money on shallow campaigning efforts that do nothing to educate the public, in keeping with standard practice for upper levels of government.

This no longer annoys me, however, since I've decided to look at the entire issue from a new perspective. They're investing in the local economy, which means the people who put up the most and gaudiest election signs care the most for local business.

Now if we could just get them to do something about those checkout lines.

Baby names redux

About a month ago, I asked readers to send me their suggestions for baby names. The response was, shall we say, memorable.

My wife and I are expecting our first around the end of October -- right around the time, I might add, that the United Nations expects the world population to reach 6 billion.

Never let it be said that I don't have any readers. I have received more than 100 suggestions for baby names, and I assure you Natasha and I gave each one the individual attention it deserved.

As expected, several people suggested their own names for the baby. Kimberly may be "a lovely name," as noted by Kimberly Brooks; and Minx may be "the best name ever," as stated by free-lancer Minx McCloud; but neither of those names is what I really wanted.

Surprisingly, only one reader submitted a name that was a play on the baby's last name. That reader was Lynn Winters Mineo, and in an e-mail, she asked me, "How about Olivia Anne Learn? Her nickname would be Liv Anne Learn."

Ba-boom-cha. I won't ask Ms. Mineo what names she picked for her own children, but you can rest assured my heart goes out to them.

That was it for the common names. Among the more unusual names suggested were Latrine and Garage Door, again suggested by Minx McCloud.

"These names are good because they are nongender-specific," she wrote.

Thankfully, Minx doesn't have any children, so we don't have to worry about how she might have warped her own progeny with sobriquets like Encephalitis McCloud and Cholera McCloud.

Several people suggested themes. John Harris, in addition to suggesting names from the recent -- i.e., later than 1970 -- Star Trek TV shows, suggested a few guidelines based on the "Dragonriders of Pern" fantasy novels by Anne McCaffrey.

"Use variations of more traditional names, varying the spelling or pronunciation, or inserting an apostrophe in unconventional places," he said. That would present suggest like B'Lair, or Jahn.

Another theme was suggested by Sam Clover:

"The novelist Nicholson Baker, author of 'Room Temperature,' called his baby girl in that novel 'the bug,'" he wrote. "You could follow suit on the insect theme with 'beetle' or 'butterfly.'"

My big fear with having a daughter named Butterfly Learn is that some demented entomologist will try to collect her, or if we go with Cockroach Learn, that someone will step on her. But Musca Domestica Learn does have a certain appeal, and the first two names even end in A, which makes it an automatic girl's name.

Andrew Yoder suggests the following:

"A good masculine name would be Atilla the Learn. For that matter, you could always try for Feminine Learn or Estrogina Learn and Masculine Learn or Testosterone Learn."

Other names on his list include: Bar Bell Learn, Southern Belle Learn; geographical names like Newark Learn, Easton Learn, and Egg Harbor Learn; and cartoon names like Shaggy, Velma, Bugs, Daffy, Goggles, Ricochet and (of course) Bullwinkle Learn.

The scary thing is, I know this guy, and he does have children.

A few people suggested Star Wars-type names, ranging from Ewok Learn to Jar Jar Binks Learn. My favorite suggestion along these lines came, again, from Sam Clover, who suggested a combination of letters and numbers, a la R2D2 and C3PO.

All things considered, the single most impressive list of names came from someone identified only as Ted. (Well, I have his e-mail address too, but it really would be rude to print that here.) Ted included a list of fonts that he took from Microsoft Word 97, complete with what these names would suggest about the baby.

A partial list: Arial, if the child appears to be overtly attentive; Bookman, a studious child; Braggadocio, a boisterous, overconfident child; Colonna, a fibrous child; Lucinda, a clairvoyant child; and Webdings, a scatterbrained Internet-ensconced child.

And of course, Helvetica. "Don't know what kind of child would have a name like Helvetica, but what a great name!" Ted writes. "Perhaps her middle name could be '12.'"

I'd like to thank everyone who suggested names for us; at this point, I think Natasha and I are stocked up on names for at least 50 more children, and neither one of us is anxious to have that large a family.

There was one final contributor worth noting. Michelle Graham, an old friend of Natasha's, sent me a list of unusual words from the dictionary, and also included this note:

"When I was in elementary school, I wanted to have fraternal twins (a boy and a girl) and name them Oreo and Orea. Hmmm ... maybe you shouldn't ask me for advice in the area of nomenclature."

baby names

My wife and I are in a sort of baby-name hell right now. It's been virtually impossible to find one we like.

We've chosen baby names twice so far, but we still keep searching for anything that might be better than what we already have selected. It's only natural. We'll be out at the movies, shopping for groceries or reading a book, and a chance association will suggest a name to one of us.

"What about Natasha?" my wife asks.

"No."

"What's wrong with Natasha?"

"Nothing," I say. "Except it makes me think of Boris and Natasha from 'Bullwinkle,' and besides, as Jeff Holton pointed out back in college, Natasha spelled backward is 'Ah, Satan!' and I don't want my daughter to have to live with that stigma."

And so it goes with name after name. We've rejected names from Ozymandius and Sennecharib to Zachary and Nicholas, and from Lilith and Hester Prynne to Helen and Kinsey. With only three months to go, there's a growing chance the baby will be born with no other handle than "Hey, you with the diaper."

The hell we're in is quite real. It's located within the Eighth Circle, sandwiched between the simoniacs and the grafters, with all the other futurists.

Everyone knows that unusual first names have the power to ruin a child's school years, and a child with a truly cartoonish name could plunge down The Dark Side faster than Anakin Skywalker and become U.S. secretary of defense, like Caspar "the friendly ghost" Weinberger did in 1981.

Natasha and I have to be especially careful in this regard since, in my experience, the last name Learn can be bad enough on its own. In fifth grade, one girl loved to call me "David Learn About Words," after the vocabulary section in our reading class, and other children were quick with jokes about David "has a lot to" Learn. (Actually, some people still do that.)

My fellow students weren't the only ones keen to start an early career in comedy. Just about every teacher of mine thought it was clever and original to say on the first day, "Well, Mr. Learn, with a name like that, I don't think you'll have any trouble in this class."

So if the pressure isn't great enough already to come up with a good baby name, a group called the Society of Kabalarians has determined an exact mathematical formula for determining how your first name will shape your personality, personal relationships and physical health, as well your personal and business success.

I'm not quite sure how this is supposed to work, but they have all sorts of impressive-sounding babble and 60 years of experience of cultish thinking to back themselves up.

"Your name is your life! It is how you identify yourself. It is how others identify you," says their Web site. "The more insight you have into the powerful influence of your name, the greater opportunity to enjoy the success you are capable of achieving."

For only $60, they'll furnish the expectant parents with an in-depth name analysis that considers the baby's first name, last name and birthdate, as well as any lawn ornaments the baby may resemble in appearance.

I have to admit: I'm impressed. I thought only astrologers were this whacked-up.

But just to be sporting, I punched in the name Orpheus. I received a 255-word analysis that said a child with the name Orpheus would develop a quick, active mind, a desire to associate with people and a love of artistic expression, just like the mythological Orpheus.

The downside is a lack of organization and perseverance, a tendency to overeat, and a strong likelihood to get ripped to pieces by the bacchante after a failed bid at rescuing someone from the Underworld. So the name's not as great as it sounds.

In my search for good names, I've scoured great literature ranging from the Bible and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, to the Berenstein Bears' "The Spooky Old Tree" and "Uncanny X-Men," issues 99-142.

Natasha summarily rejected the names Lucio, Ma Bear and Cyclops, but I wasn't daunted. I have other irons in the fire. As soon as I learned we were pregnant, I asked friends and co-workers for help.

One person, with a clear love of "Popeye," has suggested names like "Sweet Pea" and "Bluto." Other co-workers, evidently the sort of people who made middle school so awful for the rest of us, suggested "Ubetta Learn," "Univer Learn" and "Livand Learn."

Even colleagues I have little direct contact with have suggested their ideas.

"I have always thought that 'Gordo' makes a lovely name for either a boy or a girl," said one fellow, whose nickname -- by purest coincidence, he assures me -- happens to be Gordo.

So I give up. If I can't come up with a show-stopping name myself, I'm sure my readers can do the job for me. What would you name my baby, if you had the chance?

Send me your thoughts, and I'll print the best responses here on a future date. Make sure you include your name so I can be sure to give credit where it's due.

It might not get me out of the Eighth Circle of Hell, but I'm sure it will make the stay a bit more pleasant.

by no other name

It happened again the other day. I got a letter addressed to David Learned.

It was a letter from some company I had never heard of, even though they claimed to value my years as a customer. Some noodlehead somewhere in the corporate world typed my name into a database somewhere, and -- bless the noodlehead's heart -- typed it in wrong.

Maybe the noodlehead thought he was doing me a favor by "fixing" my name (a problem my brother Brian regularly has had with both his first and last names), or maybe the noodlehead simply knows someone named Learned, and unintentionally transposed the name onto mine. Worse gaffes than that happened at Ellis Island, I'm told.

I try to take these things philosophically. Learned is a common name, and the Learneds probably are related to the Learns somewhere back there.

Learned is one of the milder screw-ups I've seen of my name. In my time, I've seen my last name spelled Lern, Lear, Lean, Loorn, Leorn and once, even Warren. It does make it easier to tell which companies sell my name to mailing lists, but still ...

My name has been David Learn since 1970. It might not be much of a name, but it's mine. It's one of the few things I was born with, and it's one of the few things I'll have my whole life and take to the grave with me.

It's frustrating to see someone get your name wrong, and even after 28 years, it can still get my goat.

I could understand the confusion if my name were a fairly difficult one like "Beowulf Rosencrantz-Oppenheimer III," but how much simpler does a last name get than Learn? That was one of my spelling words in third grade.

Because I sometimes have to spell my name 50 times in one week, I try to make it as simple as possible. "It's David Learn," I say when people ask me my name. "L-E-A-R-N, like in school." Most people appreciate the extra effort, but I was tempted to give it up one day when someone returned my call and asked for "David School."

Beowulf Rosencrantz-Oppenheimer III looks better all the time.

At least I know I'm not alone in this mess. Everyone I know has some horror story about a named that was misspelled or mispronounced once, and how it irked them no end.

My wife's maiden name is Hanson. Back before we started dating, she told me people sometimes asked her if she was related to Jim Henson, the man who brought us Cookie Monster, Count von Count and the other Muppets.

I told her the proper response was to start crying and explain that her father had died a few years ago, and that, despite a will clearly stating the family business was to be split, her brother Brian had taken control of the entire Muppet empire and left her penniless.

While the Hanson-Henson issue no longer applies, Natasha still has name issues to contend with. People regularly misspell her name, and now she's fighting the never-ending battle to get her new surname spelled correctly.

"Learn!" she fairly shouts sometimes. "Like the verb."

It's just a matter of time until someone sends her a letter addressed to Natasha Henson Verb.


Copyright © 1999 by David Learn. Used with permission.

Roddenberry's literary inspiration for Trek names

Here's an item of interest for people wondering where the names come  from for Star Trek characters.

It should be common knowledge that all of the character names in Classic Star Trek, including Spock, were stolen from the pages of the early, less widely known, works of Shakespeare.

New research indicates that previous drafts of Macbeth featured a Scottish king named Kirk who was murdered by the Thane of Cawdor, an enterprising man named MacCoy. also the working title of the play.

Toward the end of the play, Lady MacCoy throws a beggar out of the castle, crying, "Out, out, damn Spock!"  The pretender king, MacCoy, is killed in a brutal sword fight with a Scotsman called "Scotty." In later drafts, his name was changed to MacDuff.

We all (or many of us, at least) have heard about Jordi LaForge, the disabled Star Trek fan for whom Chief Engineer Geordi LaForge is named.  And many of us also have heard that Jean-Luc Picard is named, in part, after Jean Piccard, a French balloonist.  (There is also a Jean Picard, a French astronomer noted for calculating the size of the earth.) And of course Wesley was named after Roddenberry himself, whose given name was Wesley Eugene.

Well, here's something else to add to the trivia:

pulaski: a single-bit axe with an adze-shaped hoe extending from the back
(Courtesy of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)

I don't know if it's significant, but it struck me as interesting to find out that "pulaski" is actually a word and not just a name.

Add that to other useless name trivia about the origins of names like "Hikaru" (means the Shining One, see Vonda Mackintyre's "The Entropy Effect" for more info.), "Mr Atoz" ("A to Z," appropriate for a librarian) and N'gilam ("Malign" backwards).

Nyota Uhuru (or Uhura, depending on the transliteration) is Swahili for "Star Freedom."

Pavel Chekov was the name of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's father.

I think — and this is mostly a guess — that the name of Leonard McCoy comes from a short story by Kafka called "Just a Plain Old Country Doctor."

That's all I can think of right now.