Apologies for the light blogging this week, but it’s the first week back, you know? My calendar is positively blue with appointments, etc. It’s been great, but a shock to the system after a year of precious little socializing.
The other thing that’s weird is that, over the past year, I had maybe three time-specific commitments a week. We’ve been very busy, but most days I could choose what I wanted to do when. Alas, no more.
Anyhow, being busy and lame, I’m going to cheat and highlight an old blog post that lives on in comments. It’s a short little thing called “Worst Baby Names Ever”, but it’s accrued 30,000 visitors and 130 comments since I wrote it three years ago. People seem to love coming by to complain about their own name, or mock other people’s.
The most recent comment made me laugh:
Ok I’m dating a man named Richard Panek. (Dick Panek) And if we get married my name will be Kayla Mae Panek.
Given my last name, I shouldn’t throw stones. But that’s a classic.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Did you see the NYTimes article, A Boy Named Sue?
Gist: kids with bad names don’t make out so well in the spin cycle of life. They end up in prison and with all sorts of other social afflictions, like unpopularity.
I think it likely significant that the writer is J. Marion Tierney. Wonder what the J. stands for.
I’ve always wondered the origin of your name. I mean it’s not that common. Were your parents fans of Bewitched, ‘Darren’?
But seriously, I am curious about your last name. Does it have native origins?
Gregg: Nope, no native origins. Though I do think that, in my youth, I got a couple of job interviews because employers thought they could diversify their workforce based on my resume. Then this big white dude walks into the interview, and they’d look a little crestfallen.
My ancestry is British, Irish and Scottish, and before that it’s Nordic. Think ‘Barfut’, back in the day.
I did a play once in high school. The (beautiful) assistant director’s last name was Topham. One of the cast had a crush in her, his last name was Lyzon. He realised that if they married and hyphonated, he would be Mr. Lyzon-Topham. You might have to say it to get it.
@James … if you go to the article, skip to the penultimate para and then read to the end, you’ll see the answer and the background.