Life Lessons: What's in a name?

Every few years, I thought of changing my name legally, but never found an alternative I liked well enough to go through the hassle.

By PHILIP GOLD
El Al airplanes (photo credit: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters)
El Al airplanes
(photo credit: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters)
Shakespeare got it wrong. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but when you’ve got a name you can’t abide, what’s in it is concentrated essence of aggravation.
Take it from Harvey on this one.
Harvey is me. Philip is my middle name. Since early childhood, I’ve loathed, detested, despised and otherwise thought poorly of my first name.
Nor was the Hebrew equivalent, Chaim, much more appealing – even though every time I heard somebody proclaim “L’haim!” I thought they were toasting me.
I also tried the Yiddish equivalent of Philip, Feivel, and when thus addressed, invariably responded “Five’ll get ya 10.”
How did I ever survive?
My reasons for disliking “Harvey” were multitudinous. Among them, Harvey was the title character of an old Jimmy Stewart movie: an invisible sixfoot rabbit that only a drunk could see.
Feivel, on the other hand, was some sort of fictional Yiddish mouse-hero.
For a young child in search of identity, having to choose between an invisible rabbit with a rampaging pituitary and a saccharine-sweet two-ounce cheese addict was traumatizing.
Finally, I decided to bag the whole thing until I could leave home and start calling myself Philip. This I did, and for the next 40 years forgot about Harvey – except when dealing with the government, the banks and telemarketers who tried to ingratiate themselves by using my first name.
“Hiya, Harv.”
“Ooh, ‘The Voices’ said you’d be calling. Where may I find you?” Click.
Not so amusing: I once failed a polygraph at the first control question.
“Is your name Harvey?”
“Yes.”
SPIKE.
Every few years, I thought of changing my name legally, but never found an alternative I liked well enough to go through the hassle. Then a Buddhist lady friend explained that my anti-Harvey animus definitely had something to do with my past lives, and if I tried to recover at least a few names, enlightenment would follow. So I sat down on the porch with the moon and a bottle of Wild Turkey for illumination, and did indeed learn about who and where and when I’d been. Among others:
Lt.-Gen. Heinreich Meinreich Graf von Kost-Überrun, 19th-century Prussian militarist and inventor of the bloated defense budget.
Nho Dam Gud, 17th-century Indochinese warlord.
Prtzl-Bndr, Aztec god of mirth.
And then, finally... Betakh Betakh, senior fellow in King Solomon’s think tank, the Center for Proverbial Wisdom.
Enlightenment made no difference. And so I decided: Philip it was, Philip it would remain.
But then I made aliya and learned that modern Hebrew had lots of nice names.
Of course, I’d have to clear it with my wife. Who was having name troubles of her own.
My wife’s name is Erin. When I tell Israelis her name, they inevitably respond, “You’re married to Aaron?”
“No. Not Aaron. Erin.”
And Erin was getting tired of being called “Ereeeeen.” So we started shopping for monikers. I’ve always liked “Eytan,” transliterated with a y, a name meaning “steadfast” and other good qualities. Erin liked the feminine, “Eytana.” I asked my ulpan teacher if there was such a woman’s name.
“Absolutely not,” she replied hotly.
“There is now.”
Still “Eytan and Eytana” didn’t sound quite right, or was perhaps a bit too close to Ilan and Ilanit. (Are they still recording?) So once again I put the matter on hold.
Then came Protekzia, the feral cat who wandered in, sniffed around and consented to bestow her needs upon us. Two days later, having exhausted our milk and tuna fish inventories, I reentered the bizarre world of pet food names.
Now, cat food wasn’t new to me; in America, we’d been staff for several such cats. I knew the brands: Whiskas, Fancy Feast, Friskies, with their labels all reading like five-star menus. I’d purchased them with disdain. Still, as long as the cats liked them, what did it matter what I thought?
But now the absurdity caught up, this time multinationally.
Israeli names proved stunningly unimaginative; Protekzia spurned their products. Nor did Russian offerings fare much better, although I vaguely remember seeing a can of Friskies with a Russian label .
What was inside, wondered I. Putin’s Platter? Oligarch’s Delight? Then there was something c a l l e d Italian Cat, containing, v a r i o u s l y, chicken, rabbit or duck. I came to think of the brand as Dead Italian Byproducts. Protekzia endorsed them all. In time, however, it became clear that Friskies was her fave.
I admired her taste in “going American.” But I also became uneasy. Why pay fancy prices for imported foods? Can’t anything be done domestically?
And then it came to me. Turn the whole pet food industry over to the political parties. Let each have its own brand, with pictures of their leaders prominently displayed. Great way to raise money. Netanyahu’s Niblets. Livni’s Legumes. Bennett’s Bounty. Meretz Morsels. And all the rest.
And what better way to reengage the Israeli people politically, than by letting them feed politicians to their pets?
The writer, an American immigrant, is author of seven books, most recently Yom Kippur Party Goods (John Hunt/O Books, 2011). His novel of Israel and America, Ha’Kodem, is just about finished. Again.