Larry Ashmead - Bertha Venation: And Hundreds of Other Funny Names of Real People

I have always been fascinated by names. I dont know why. I grew up as Lawrence Peel Ashmead, the second child in an ordinary family in Rochester, New York. My father was named Lawrence Henry, my mother Lillian (Peel was her maiden name). My older brother is Thomas Graham. But all around me were other names, different, funny, even remarkable names.

My mothers two best friends were Edith Shortsleeve and Bettina Buttons.

During a high school football game so important the coach was on the field rather than at his wifes side in the delivery room, twins were born just after halftime and over the loudspeaker the father proclaimed: Ladies and gentlemen, Ive got a Razzle and a Dazzle!

A neighbor made a fortune in bottled tomato sauce and put a sign in front of his new home: The House that Ragu Built. Just down the street another sign proclaimed, Deja View. My high school mathematics teacher retired to a cottage in the country, named Aftermath. Ive always loved imaginative names of houses. Years later, in the 1970s, I was not to be denied. I bought a beach house on the ocean in the Hamptons and named it Lay-Me-Dune. The house later washed away in a hurricane but the name is immortalized in novels by Susan Isaacs, Anne Rivers Siddons, and Celestine Sibley.

When I began working at Simon and Schuster the Human Resources Department mistakenly thought my name was Lawrence P. Ashead. Despite many complaints I couldnt get anyone to correct the error. For the year and a half I remained at the publishing house this was my official name on security passes, paychecks, medical formsany piece of paper originating from the Human Resources Department. During college I worked at the Eastman Kodak company. Here my name was spelled correctly.

Simon and Schuster, perhaps a giant in the publishing world but tiny in the business world, made a mistake and couldnt or wouldnt correct it. I thought it was mean-spirited; my mother was outraged by the cavalier attitude toward what she considered a highly regarded surname. My father laid all blame at the feet of the newfangled computer. Sam Vaughan, a wise mentor at Doubleday, got it right. With a sense of foreboding he thought it was a harbinger of the coming conglomeration of small companies and a reflection of the diminishing importance of the editor in the world of book publishing.

My mother was a great fan of the television show Dynasty and she particularly admired Alexis Carrington, played by Joan Collins, a smart knowledgeable businesswoman. It was over-the-top in melodrama, especially in its repartee on the telephone. My mother was not in business but she was an astoundingly quick-take. She lived in Upstate New York and rarely called me at my office. Once, when Dynasty was the most popular drama on television, she had some good reason to call.

My assistant was Court VanRooten.

C OURT : Mr. Ashmeads office.

M OTHER: Is he there?

C OURT : Im sorry, he is in a meeting. May I take your name?

M OTHER: Please tell him his mother called. Hell know who it is.

My mother was very proud of our surname. If her marriage had taken place in a more modern era Im sure she would have linked a hyphen to her family name Peel, but Ashmead was unique enough to shore up her fragile sense of elitism. She also took pride in her discovery of an heirloom apple, Ashmeads Kernel, developed in England in the 1770s. She ignored the fact that it was described as ugly by modern standards. She wasnt aggressive, just a bit of a snob upstate where common names were, well, common.

When I moved to New York in 1960 my drivers license was about to expire. I hightailed it to the motor vehicle bureau on Worth Street. The clerk editing my renewal form casually commented, Ashmead, thats my married name. Really, it is such an uncommon name. Not in Harlem, lots of Ashmeads up there. A few days later I recalled this conversation to my mother. She obviously thought this put a bit of a puncture in her overinflated idea of the exclusivity of the Ashmead name but recovered quickly. I presume your fathers ancestors had many slaves. Upon their release to freedom they had no last names, and welcomed the surname Ashmead.

At one point in the early 1960s my mother called me to say shed seen Bennett Cerf on television, also Jacqueline Susann. Did I know them? Did I know any famous authors? I proudly told her I counted Isaac Asimov as one of my own. She said, Thats an odd name, Isaac Asimov. He sounds Jewish. I said, Yes, he is. Well, remember, hes smarter than you are.

One more Mother storyit doesnt involve a funny name but a wonderful malapropism. Edith Delinsky was my mothers best friend for many years. Edith was a worldwide traveler. Rochester offered Edith little adventure. Canada, only a few miles to the north, was fine for skiing but that was a sport for the younger set. She and a few lady friends, all with up-to-date passports and airline-approved suitcases with wheels, would leave their husbands and travel the globe. Husbands stayed at their jobs at Kodak. Wives took the family camera and brought back countless Kodachrome slides for endless evenings of neighborly entertainment. Edith, the most intrepid of the group, was especially fond of taking photographs of dishes of food as it was served and after eating.

Years later I said to my mother, You havent mentioned Edith in a long time. Does she still take those long trips? My mother lowered her voice, customary when talking about serious subjects, especially illness. Poor Edith. Her kidneys are almost completely shot. I cant help but think it was all those foreign foods she ate. But those days are gone. Edith is practically intercontinental.

On my first trip to London I stayed at the Londoner Hotel in Welbeck Street. Registered at the same time was a Lady Ashmead and, after a bit of confusion at the switchboard, I rang her. There are so few Ashmeads, I said to her. Perhaps we should meet. We could be related. I doubt it very much, was her curt reply.

On this same visit to London I made the rounds of the book publishers. There were many companies before the great and small mergers that took place in the 1980s. One of the most distinguished was Collins. The company was scattered in a series of connected town houses on St. James Place. It was owned by the Collinses, a family with an illustrious Scottish background. I had a midmorning meeting with Lady Collins, affectionately known to her friends as Pierre. I dressed spiffily to impress her, hoping shed be more agreeable than Lady Ashmead had been. Indeed, she was most pleasant and she offered me a cup of tea and a plate of Walkers ginger cookies. After a few words about the weather she looked at me with a hard eye and asked, That Royal Stewart tie is lovely. Are you entitled to wear it? I dont think so. I bought it because I like the colors. As an old-fashioned Scot I really dont approve of the untitled wearing of a tartan. At the risk of offense I ask you to remove it. Ill reimburse you of course and you can go to a very nice clothing shop just around the corner in Jermym Street. As I left she gave me a couple of pounds and I promised never to wear a tartan again. I havent.