A Rose By Any Other Name Would Be Called Something Else Entirely, Wouldn't It? Seriously, I'm Asking
I've been thinking and thinking about it, but it's no use. No matter how many times I mull it over it makes no sense. Could it really be true? And if it is, is there any crazy, crazy notion in this whole messed up world that couldn't be true?

Whatever the consequences, I have to admit it. It's true: I don't know anyone named Nancy.

Not only do I not currently know anyone named Nancy, I have never in my life personally met anyone named Nancy.

How could this be possible? Does this make sense to anyone else?

Sure, I've seen them on TV. There's Access Hollywood's chipper-scary bleach-toothed fake blonde Nancy O'Dell, the late Livia Soprano herself Nancy Marchand and of course the most famousest Nancy of them all, Facts of Life's Nancy McKeon. But that's like saying I know the stars because I've seen the sun.

I guess in some ways it kind of makes sense. According to the Social Security Administration's Baby Name Registry, Nancy ranks 74th amongst female names given in the 1970s (the decade I was born), equal with the male name Philip and I've only known one Philip. Total asshole, by the way. If you're reading this Phil, you're an asshole.

But as far as Nancy's popularity goes, it hasn't always been that way. I mean, 74th in the 1970s is down from 26th in the 1960s and a perpetual Top Ten for the thirty years preceding that. Nancy used to be the Brittany or Ashley of its day.

Hmm, maybe that's the problem. Hold on, I think I may have cracked it: Nancy was killed by its own ubiquity. Used to be whenever you met some girl, chances were better than one in ten that her name was Nancy. Perhaps it was so popular that the very name itself built around it such a powerful, explosive bundle of cultural weight and energy that the cross-identification of name and gender spun out of control, wreaking havoc across the linguistic landscape, laying waste to all in its path. And then as Hurricane Nancy's destructive force was spent, amongst the detritus and debris in its horrible wake, we were stuck with the association: Nancy = Girl.

And then, because we as males are always looking for new ways to ostracize, humiliate and belittle our peers--especially, say, during our playground years or when we want our sons not to run like such a goddamn girl--"nancy", like "mary" before it, found its way into schoolyard vocabulary to denote the feminine characteristics displayed by males.

O Nancy, how far you have fallen! From 74th most popular name given to American girls in the 1970s to a common epithet we use when we think the company we're in won't tolerate "faggy".

So now the only Nancys I know--that any of us know, be honest--are all actually more properly "nancies". But I don't see that as a permanent strike against the name. The tide may be turning. We've already got "metrosexual". Where "nancy" used to mean the inability to throw a ball, now maybe--and I can barely bring myself to dare to hope--"nancy" can mean well-dressed, good-smelling, neatly groomed, all singing, all dancing, all fabulous human being.

I hope for this before all else. Before world peace, before the health and well-being of my children, before a lake of gravy that only I know about. It's that important.

Tomorrow: why are there so many chicks named Cathy?



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 4.3


Pops


NOTE: I had effed up the link to the SSA baby name thingy. Instead you had a double dose of Nancy McKeon, which isn't as appealing to me as it was in 1987. Fixed.
- posted by Pops @ 9:50 AM