if I was a boy I'd change my name to Szandor

[kleenexwoman]

I really like people with unusual middle names.

Take, for example, my two greatest artistic heroes: Philip Kindred Dick and Crispin Hellion Glover. Kindred and Hellion. Out of context, are merely two slightly unusual dictionary words. Taken in tandem, they could be archetypical opposites, a mythological dichotomy.
Not that the rest of their names aren't interesting. "Philip" is a very lovely name, dignified, patrician, and simple. Unfortunately, it means "Lover of horses" in Greek. "Dick" is also an unfortunate last name, even more so because it means "Fat" in German. Instead of putting up with "chubby horsefucker" jokes, Phil named his "alternate self" character in VALIS "Horselover Fat", which is actually quite a cool name as well. "Kindred" is not his original middle name, but he didn't choose it for any particular symbolism; it's just his mother's maiden name.
As for Crispin, his name means "curly-haired" in Latin. It's also the name of an apple often also known as the Mutsu apple; the blurb on the web page I got this information from says "Bite into Crispin for a great crunch and mouthful of sweet juice!" (Do you think he'd let me?) Another page (I have too much time to spend on this) says that "the skin colour is a yellowy green, often flushed with an earthy orange. The flesh is creamy white with a fresh hint of green, juicy, and firm. The flavour is sweet, almost honey-like." Also, St. Crispin is the patron saint of leather and lace. Yowza.
(ETA: See drworm's comment below for a slightly more exhaustive and accurate discussion of Crispin's name. Am still going with "patron saint of leather and lace" because it's more interesting and provocative than the strict truth.)

Another name that I find interesting is that of fictional character Aloysius X. L. Pendergast. A weird name for a very weird detective. Let us dissect it:
I find the name "Aloysius" to be inexplicably funny, like the word "pants" or the entire city of Kalamazoo. For those who are scratching their heads and going "A-loy-see-us?", it's pronounced "Al-uh-wish-us"; for an audio guide, rent the very funny movie "O Brother Where Art Thou?" and wait until the scene where they're in the radio station trying to get the old man to give them more money.
Other versions of the name "Aloysius" include "Louis" or "Lewis", and also "Luigi", another funny name. St. Aloysius Gonzaga is the patron saint of people with AIDS and also of teenagers.
X.L.: People with two middle names have greedy parents. Somewhere, there's some poor person walking around without a middle name, or just one letter, like Harry S Truman, because an eccentric albino FBI agent's parents just had to stick that extra X in there. "X" in itself is automatically cool (sarcastically) as a middle name, just ask Perdita X. Dream (I mean Agnes Nitt). I'm betting the X stands for Xavier. I find it very amusing that his first three initials spell "Axl."
Just the name "Pendergast" does not strike me as an action-type name. "Pendergast" is a perfect name for a professor at a dusty university or a museum who spends ten years trying to decipher what he thinks is the Necronomicon but is actually "Ten Tasty Ways To Serve Fresh Elder God" (recipes include Cthulhu Sushi and Yog-Shoggoth Yogurt).

Last but not least, band names.
The two best band names, independent of their music, are The Rolling Stones and Radiohead. They could apply to any possible band or style of music.
It is impossible to say the name "Metallica" without sounding vaguely like a monster truck rally announcer. Try it; your voice will become loud and slightly stupid. "MetallicAAAH."
The name "Oingo Boingo" is impossible to say without sounding a little nasally, but that's mostly because the "oin" sound is very nasally. You can ameliorate this by doing what Manny on Ruthless Reviews did and calling them "Oingo-Fuck-Me-Boingo." I'm not sure what this means, or whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is very, very fun to say. It works best if you shriek the "fuck" a little bit. "Oingo-FUCK-Me-Boingo." There, wasn't that cathartic?

So...
What's your middle name? What does it mean? Who else has it? Does it fit you?

Comments

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Skylie is "Distorted Beauty" in Reidvyn.

Aha, your very own language. Clever clever.
I think it is quite pretty and fits you a little more than Laura does. From now on I think I may just call you Skylie.

[diraskyria.livejournal.com]

That would be very cool. ^_^