Oh Grow Up (And Change Your Surname)

Recent research carried out by King's College, London has found that many old British surnames have been disappearing in recent years.
Probably due to the embarrassment of owning a 'funny' name, the last census revealed that names like: Cock, Daft, Death, Smellie, Gotobed, Shufflebottom, Willy, Nutters, Piggs and Jelly have declined in the past century with Cock's shrinking by 75%, Balls dropping by 50% and the same amount of Willy's no longer seen and you will be struggling to see any Bottoms anymore.
The nation's most embarrassing surnames, including Handcock, Glasscock, Hickinbottom, Shufflebottom and Winterbottom are also among the names people have been most desperate to shake-off.
Today there are the most Smellies in Glasgow, Nottingham is home to the greatest number of Dafts, Blackburn is named as the hometown of Nutters, Cocks are mostly in Truro, Willy's mostly hang out in Taunton and Bottoms call Huddersfield home.
All very amusing unless you happen to be the child of Mrs & Mrs Glasscock and given the name first name of Ivor.

They Called Their Business What?

I always wondered if the brains behind the refrigerator company SMEG knew what they were doing when they named it, i get hours of fun asking my friend who has one if he keeps his cheese in it.
Other favourites are Schiit Audio Europe and before a hasty name change, the South Hants Institute of Technology always made for a great acronym.
Companies House has put out the names of 87 businesses whose names were too rude to be allowed onto their register, such as Royal Nuts Ltd, Purple Helmet Bikes, Cat Shit Coffee, Crap Ltd, Slag Ltd, Tits On Bikes, Cocks On Socks and AnusBeauty.
Also sent back to rethink their names were Top Dogging Ltd, FashionFuckery, Toss Charity, Panda Knob Ink, Knickers Knackers Knockers, Stop Making Everything Shit Ltd and TittyGoHard.
Alas we will never find out the exact nature of the service provided by TittyGoHard because as a Companies House spokesman explained: 'A company must not be registered by a name if, in the opinion of the secretary of state, its use by the company would be offensive'.
So thanks to the secretary of state we won't be using Panda Knob Ink, drinking Cat Shit Coffee or buying our Knickers Knackers or Knockers all in the one place anytime soon.

Coming Soon: Winter Olympics 2018

The 9th February sees the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea and looking through the list of participating athletes, this one is disappointing for lovers of funny names.
The best i can offer is the Canadian Ice Hockey Rob Klinkhammer, the Pakistan Cross Country Skier Syed Human and the American Alpine Skier Breezy Johnson which is a poor return for the hundreds of athletes there who will be standing at the top of a slope and letting gravity go to work.
Long gone are the days when the likes of Dick Paradise lined up in the American Ice Hockey team against Luca Cunti of the Italian team.
No more Fanny Chmelar doing her stuff on the slopes or Seraina Boner, Herve Bastard or Simona Fartakova and the short track is a lesser place for not hearing the commentator alert us to Satoshi Sakashita on the short track.
We will have to remember the good old days when Welshman Willy Tinkler pulled on the GB vest and we watched A. Wank on the top of the ski jump making a good fist of the job in hand when he came 10th in the individual event in 2014.
As the Winter Olympics favours nations with snows and mountains, Great Britain won't be troubling the top of the leader-board but as long as we finish above those pesky Australians it will be a job well done.

Who Needs Abroad When We Have These Places

Summers over, Autumn's here and it is back to work or school but we still have our memories of the places we visited in those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.
Due to the economic situation many people decided to stay at home this year so while Britain may not have the climate of the Mediterranean or the sights of Paris or Rome, we do have some brilliantly named places to visit where you can see grinning tourists doing the double thumbs up at the town signs.
There is always a queue for putting the thumbs up in Twatt in Scotland but just south of the border in Cumbria, you won't be twiddling your thumbs in Cock Play or Cockermouth.
Across the pennines in the North East you are assured of a warm welcome in Wetwang and if you head south you will find Rimswell.
No trip around the Midlands is complete without stopping to take in the small but beautiful Bell End while Gloucestershire hosts the beautifully untouched and natural Lower Swell.  
Across the border in Wales stands the impressive Three Cocks or you may decide to go across country to Essex and Fingrinhoe which is a designated conservation area with plenty of birds to watch at your leisure.   
No trip along the South Coast is complete without stopping to have a look inside Thong before carrying on to Shitterton with a pause at Lickfold for refreshments.     
Maybe your ideal trip is across the Irish Sea in the Emerald Isles and your first stop of Hackballscross before carrying on to the North Irish coast where hidden away is Muff, the wild, overgrown pastures of Lousybush, the never closed Fannystown and no tour of Ireland is complete if you don't end your tour in Cum.
Who needs abroad when we have such delights at home.

Can You Repeat That Name Please?

Nothing gets us giggling like naughty school children more than a naughty sounding name and although the pickings are disappointingly thin at the Euro's this year, we do have some brilliantly rude names from sport to amuse us and make us say 'did i see that right?'
Some of the most downright filthiest names from the world of sport include American race car driver Dick Trickle, Swiss footballer Andre Muff, English footballer Segar Bastard and Slovenian basketball player Gregor Fucka.
Jean Condom was a French rugby union player although he would have gone well with American ice hockey player Dick Paradise although maybe not so well with German footballer Ralf Minge.
Johnny Dickshot was a Baseball player, Fanny Chmelar a German alpine skier but football provides us with Brazilian Argel Fucks, Turk Anil Koc, Chilean Waldo Ponce and goalkeeper Fabian Assman.
It takes something for Japanese women's volleyball player Yoshie Takeshita to not be the top rudest name but the top two really are inspiring.
Step forward and a big hand for German Ski Jumper Andreas Wank but the top spot goes to the supremely named Gaylord Silly, the long distance runner from the Seychelles.

No Seaman At Euros 2016

As the curtain comes down on another football season, we just about have time to take a breath before the European Championship starts up and England fans have the dilemma of who to support once we get knocked out at the group stage.     
A long running tradition of the English football fan is to is to find foreign footballers and snigger like schoolchildren if their name is a bit rude with not very good 90's German midfielder Stefan Kuntz being the high water mark of infantile chuckling and leading to the marvellous joke about how, at the Euro 96 competition, we needed to play like Matthäus or Klinnsman but instead played like Kuntz.
England had a goalkeeper called David Seaman which led to such commentator quotes as 'The defender could feel Seaman all over his back' and 'Seaman's all over the slippery ball' but although not in the same league, we do have a goalkeeper in the squad called Butland which sounds a bit like a theme park Elton John would come up with.
Funny names are a bit in short supply this tournament but Slovakia have a midfielder called Filip Kiss while Italy are hoping striker Ciro Immobile doesn't live up to his name.
German midfield Lars Bender is worth a smirk and if you pronounce it right, Ilkay Gundogan sounds a bit like gone doggin' but the award for best name goes to Albania defender, Berat Xhimshiti, especially if the commentators go with the X at the start of the surname being silent.
We can only hope that FC Eindhoven's Turkish midfielder Anil Koc one day graces a tournament but for now we may have to do with Austria's Christian Fuchs getting a red card so we can hear the immortal words, 'Fuchs Off for an early bath' which is always worth a giggle.

Boaty McBoatface Would Be A Great Name

Some are calling it the greatest test of democracy in modern times. No, Not the EU referendum but the naming of the  Natural Environment Research Council new research ship.
The NERC threw the naming of their new ship over to the public and the polls have closed and the Research Council have confirmed that the votes were overwhelmingly in favour of RRS Boaty McBoatface which received four four times more votes than the second placed name, RRS Poppy Mai.
The NERC have said that they will now review all the names put forward and have previously put out a warning that the final decision will be made by the chief executive of the NERC, Duncan Wingham.
Now the NERC face the dilemma of choosing between the overwhelming choice of the public who they asked to name it and the public spoke or throw Democracy in the bin and dismiss the public and name it something proper which makes a mockery of them asking the public to name it in the first place.
Personally i think RSS Boaty McBoatface would be great not only for publicity when it launches which would make it easily the most famous boat in Britain but it would also generate some amazing publicity and interest in what it is actually doing.  
The other two NERC boats are called RRS James Cook and RRS Discovery and who has ever heard of them so having one RRS Boaty McBoatface would be a massive bonus as whenever it is on the news, everyone will know exactly what it is and what it is doing

Oh Grow Up

Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Susan Garden, Liberal Democrat life peer.

Lady Garden....

I Name This Ship...

The Natural Environment Research Council thought it would be a great idea to let the public choose the name of their new research vessel so they launched a competition to name the £200m state-of-the-art ship, with the deadline for voting on 16 April.
The research body had been looking for an inspirational name that exemplifies the work the boat will do, including studying ice sheets and ocean current and marine life.
The British public have spoken and amongst the current front runners are RRS Usain Boat, RRS Boat and RRS Pingu but the name way out in front by over 8000 votes is RRS Boaty McBoatface.
The NERC, however, have added a line to the competition that: 'the final name will be selected by NERC'.
Spoilsports.

Where Was That F**cking Place Again?

Not for the first time, it seems us English speakers have upset the Austrians, or rather one city in particular.
It seems we have been snickering, amongst other things, at their town name, the gloriously named City of F*CKING.
The Major of F*CKING has been ranting about English-speaking tourists acting out their village's name beneath the sign at the entrance to the town.
First up to defend us as usual is the Germans, with the top knob in the Town of W*NK saying that the F*CKING Major has got it wrong and he should be grabbing the opportunity with both hands as they do in W*NK.
'We have so many visitors coming to W*nk' he explained, 'In summer visitors can take hikes up W**k Mountain, or take it easy in the four seater W*nk cable car that goes all the way to the peak.'
Local tourism chiefs say they realised that their name was a goldmine when it came to attracting English-speaking visitors and sell plenty of W*NK postcards, W*NK sweets and ornaments to show their friends and family of the time they came to W*NK.
A favourite is the photographer who for a small fee will take your picture beside the 'Welcome to W*nk signs.'
The F*CKING Major is not taking the advice of the W*NK's though and is determined to crack down on disrespectful visitors by installing CCTV to deter tourists from lewd behaviour beside their roadsigns.
'We don't find it funny and just want to be left alone' he grumbled so remember that next time you are in central Europe, you are more than welcome to W*NK but make sure you stop before F*CKING.

Nice One Mrs & Mrs Kerr

The choosing of a name is a personal thing, sometimes the parents decide to name their offspring after a member of the family or an inspirational figure from history or even they go for the option of using the moniker of someone in the current spotlight.
Occasionally the parents give the matter no thought at all and disregard that their offspring will hear a lifetime of snickering whenever they are introduced.
That's why we have people like the Canadian baseball player Stubby Clapp, Randy Lerner sat in the big chair at Aston Villa and to this list of humorous names we can add the Jamaican currently keeping goal at the COPA America, DuWayne Kerr.
Mr Kerr's parents either have a great sense of humour or..., let's just say they have a great sense of humour but as funny as it is, it has not made it's way in to my list of side splitting names.
A special mention here to former footballer Stefan Kuntz and downhill skier Andreas Wank but they don't even get close to the Associate Professor of Natural Sciences at Singapore University, Shit Fun Chew, or the former US ambassador to Denmark, Dick Swett.
Still holding the top spot at number one is the man at the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe who is named Tiny Kox.
Mr and Mrs Kox, we salute you .

Poor Pickings For World Cup Cheap Laughs

The World Cup kicks off in 11 days and as it is being hosted by Brazil in Brazil, most people expect the five times winners to become six time winners at the end of it but what if the World Cup was a league and we used all games played by all nations in the group and knockout stages.
Well, Brazil would still come out on top followed by Germany, Italy, Argentina Spain and then England so let's ignore that idea.
Every time the World Cup has been held in the Americas, a South American team has won it (2 Uruguay, 2 Argentina, 3 Brazil) so with a South American side destined to win the thing and the worst England team to leave our shores in living memory destined to be on the end of a Italian and Uruguayan flavoured shellacking, we are having to fall back on the ever reliable British staple of making fun of foreigners names.
Or so you would think but a glance down the list of players yields very little considered chuckle worthy. 
Chile's Claudio Bravo, Australian Tommy Oar, Swiss Roman Buerki, Iranin Mehrdad Pooladi and German Roman Weidenfeller are the best out of a bad bunch so it's thanks to the footballing gods for Lee Bum-Young the third choice goalkeeper for South Korea.

Can I Call You Hery?

After his success at the Oscars with the mangled introduction of singer Idina Menzel, a new career beckons for John Travolta as the person who introduces heads of state at banquets.
Obama should hire him and invite a select group of countries as i'm sure Travolta would have no problems with introducing the Indonesian head of state, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono or even Qatar's Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Than.
The Bhutan representative, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, would be invited as would Turkmenistan's Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow and Samoa's Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi but pride of place and sure to induce a meltdown in the Travolta brain is the new president of Madagascar, Hery Martial Rajaonarimampianina Rakotoarimanana.

Winter Olympic Names

The Sochi countdown clock tells me it is only 2 days and 22 hours until the opening ceremony of the XXII Winter Games.
The Sochi website has a full list of all the athletes so let's have a look to see who will be lighting up our television screens for the next few weeks.  
In the ice hockey we have Jenni Asserholt of Sweden while the Swiss have Luca Cunti and Romy Eggimann.
The Americans are usually a good bet for some funny names but apart from Summer Britcher in the luge and Sugar Todd in the skating, slim pickings there in the funny name stakes.  
Beat Hefti in the Swiss Toboggan might raise a smile first time so it is all down to the Germans and their Ski Jumping team and the one man who can rescue us from a very poor funny name tournament. 
Down there, at the bottom of the alphabetical list, Andreas Wank.
Normal childlike sniggering when the commentator says: 'Next up, A.Wank from Germany' is resumed. Split sides all round if the commentator mentions how he is holding his own.

What's Your Name Again?

I have always found it mildly amusing when peoples names resemble their careers. At school my music teacher was Mrs Horn and i know a woodwork teacher called Mr Carpenter but i didn't know that the phenomenon where people who seem inexorably drawn to their profession by virtue of their name is called 'nominative determinism'.
No less an authority than Carl Jung pondered the connection asking 'Are these the whimsicalities of chance, or the suggestive effects of the name or are they meaningful coincidences?'
No idea Carl but what it does give us is some brilliantly funny examples such as the head of Astronomy at Edniburgh University being called Alan Heavens and the author of a book about the polar region named Daniel Snowman.
Mark Avery was the director of conservation at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the big cheese of the UK branch of dairy company Danone is Mr Fromage and i'm sure that i once read that Buzz Aldrin' mothers maiden name was Moon. Ornithologist Carla Dove is in charge of the Division of Birds at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, Svetlana Filippova is a springboard diver in the same Russian team as Marina Stepanova who is, of course, a hurdler.
One of my favourites is the New York Lawyer Sue Yoo which is all very funny but of course the real fun comes when we put aside our adult behaviour and maturity and become schoolkids again and look for the names that are a bit rude.
Names like the urologist who specialises in vasectomies Dr Richard (Dick) Chopp who shares his urology clinic with Dr. Hardeman and Dr. Wang.
I am just glad that Shit Fun Chew who is an Associate Professor of Natural Sciences at Singapore University didn't become a chef.

Nice Name

I never thought for a moment that somebody would come along with a name more likely to induce childish giggling than the former US ambassador to Denmark, Dick Swett, but Dicky has been relegated to second most ludicrous name in the World with the emergence of the man sent by the Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe to monitor the Russian elections.

Ladies and gentleman, meet Tiny Kox.

What a weiner

Much sniggering at the ludicrously named Anthony Weiner who has resigned following sending lewd photos of himself to women he chatted to online.

Having Weiner as a surname is amusing sure but it doesn't come close to the best name i have ever heard which belongs to the former United States Ambassador to Denmark.

Ladies and gentleman, meet Dick Swett.

HMS What?

Quiet down class and turn your history books to page 116, World warships.
I don't want any repeat of the disorder we had in the last lesson when we found out the American navy has a warship called USS Ponce. Yes Jilly, i agree it is a funny name and no Danny, i'm sure it wasn't named after the lead singer from the Scissor Sisters.
So for today's lesson, i would like to concentrate on some other ships without the juvenile snickering thank you very much.
As you can see on page 116, we have real ships from the Royal Navy flower class. From left to right we have HMS Begonia, HMS Bluebell, HMS Buttercup, HMS Candytuft, HMS Cowslip, HMS Honeysuckle, HMS Lavender, HMS Marigold, HMS Pansy, HMS Petunia, HMS Pink, HMS Primrose, HMS Rhododendron and HMS Snowdrop.
I'm sure i don't know if Prince Andrew served on HMS Pansy Karen but we can check later.
On the next page we have one of the flagships of the Titan Shipping Co who name their ships after planets. Hence Titan Uranus. Yes, i'm sure it is full of seaman Danny.
Okay, the last ship i would like to look at is the insect class gunboat, HMS Cockchafer...oh i give up.

USS What?

The United States Navy does have an impressive array of ships at its disposal. Some are named after former Presidents such as USS Eisenhower, USS George Washington and USS Harry Truman.
There are others with names such as USS Wasp and USS Boxer which conjure up visions of vicious, stinging insects and tough canines.
So what happened with USS Ponce?

Winter Olympics Highlight

From the bits i have seen, the Winter Olympics in Vancouver have been quite disappointing for us Brits.
We won a gold medal in the ladies Skeleton but our medal bag is as empty as Ashley Cole's underpants if the rumours of Mr Cole's equipment are to be believed.
Being a virtually snow-less island, Britain was always going to be nearer the bottom of the Medal Table than the top and it looks as though Australia are going to finish above us which is galling.
As we suck at these snow events, we have looked for other ways to entertain ourselves while the countries with the unfair advantage of having mountain ranges carve up the medals among themselves.
One good old fashioned British past-time is making fun of Johnny Foreigners names and once again it is our Germanic cousins who have cheered us Brits up after watching our two man toboggan slide down the track on it's side.
Footballer Stefan Kuntz has a place in British folklore just by the virtue of his name being daringly close to the name we call Manchester United supporters but even he has been surpassed by the German Ski jumper with the gloriously naughty name, Andreas Wank.
Yes it is childish and immature and we should know better but if Germans are going to give themselves surnames like A. Wank, it would be rude not to cackle like drains when the commentator says things like 'The next German up is A Wank'.
Great stuff.