name regret

[Ron butters]

My point was not that naming children after presidents is uncool. My point was that leftist faculty members might think that naming a child after Ronald Reagan would be uncool--to the point where they might would scornfully out any fellow professor they discovered to bear the dreaded name. I assumed readers would reference the cultural cliche that views English Departments at fashionable schools as leftist in politics. (That for sure was the case at Duke during the past 30 years.) 

As someone who actually WAS named after Ronald Reagan, I feel that I can speak with authority and sensitivity on the question. However, be it known ( now as I out myself) that my mother made her decision based not on the great communicator's politics (which at the time were mostly mushy-headed FDRism) but on his sex appeal (in youth, his good looks were much more powerful than his brains or political stances).

Ronald R. Butters

On Oct 14, 2011, at 5:58 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

BTW, I don't see what's so odd about Ronald Reagan Jones, especially
since he has every opportunity to avoid using his middle name with
regularity (Ronald R. Jones may be uncool, but that's because it's so
plain). It's no more odd or uncool than name combinations than include
George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Payne as First+Middle.
"Uncool" is also relative--both individually and temporally. And it's no
more dorky to name kids after politicians than naming kids after Madonna

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