I nearly ran over my neighbor this evening.

Pat Napoleon (no relation as far as I know) was in the middle of the road in her tie-dyed t-shirt and slippers, eating something out of a bucket. Not like a beach bucket but more like a the bucket one gets chicken in. Maybe it *was* a chicken bucket. I don't know. I doubt it because it was blue and from Whole Foods. If it was chicken, it was free range chicken. And well loved. Until they killed it and put it in a bucket. But I digress.

Pat Napoleon is married to Leo Napoleon. I love their names. I love saying Leo Napoleon. And it made me start thinking about names I've known that have made me laugh in one way or another.

The first odd name I ever encountered was my father's mechanic when I was a kid. I didn't understand why my mother snickered every time my father said he had to take the car in. It wasn't until I was about 12 that I clued in on his name: Dick Tingle.

Another great name from my past belonged to some neighbors we had. Avery and whatever her brother was. Their last name was Fischoder (pronounced: Fish Odor).

Of course, my maiden name is Gross. I once offered extra credit to some 9th graders if they could come us with a way to make fun of my name that I had never heard before. But they didn't, dazzled as they were by the classic "is your middle name IS?"

I knew a grad student in my program in archaeology whose name was Dusty.

I had a resident once whose name was Dr. Feeling. And another one whose name was Payne. I wondered how that would work out as a hyphenated last name?

We knew a couple in Boston who would have had the best hyphenated name ever: He was Frost and she was Wild so it would have been Wild-Frost. They totally could have been super heroes with that name.

Then there was the year at camp when I had a camper named Princess (I have since had several Princesses although none of the others have been white. And one came with a twin named Precious). Princess's brother? Jesus. Not Spanish. No "hay-soos" but Jesus as in the swearing.

One year we taught two Uniquas. I guess they weren't.

I also had a set in twins in southern Massachusetts named Rusty and Dusty (actually I have known 3 Dustys and only the grad student was female. And yes she was named for the singer).

I had a Raji and a Shakti. Both lived in an Ashram. Or maybe only one did. One's last name was Mandelkorn.

I had a school secretary whose name was Linda File. She was not a nice woman. Maybe it was all the Files she left at home. She had like six kids.

I knew a woman whose name was Dolores. She could not have been more aptly named. She had the saddest life of anyone I know.

When we were kids, my sister and I actually thought my grandmother's friend's name was Poor Marilyn. We actually asked her once when she'd visit Poor Marilyn while staying with us. That wasn't really her name.