> Ferrell described having to wait through the first week of school before his teachers would remember he went by Will as "excruciating to me." "It wasn't my choice," he said, when Applegate asked about his disdain for the name John. "My parents named [me] John but they called me Will. I grew up as Will, but on a rule sheet, my legal name is John Ferrell."
I've never really felt one way or the other about my name but it never really occurred to me that there were folks out there that might outright hate it.
Now I'm wondering if there are non-Johns who feel this way who see it and go "sorry bro I just can't."
I don’t think that’s what he was saying. My legal name is James but I’m Jim. I was Jimmy the day I was born. I introduce myself as Jim. Most of my public identity is Jim. So besides a cop reading my license or my name being called in the doctor’s office, James feels like Im wearing someone else’s clothes. I don’t mind the name at all. I think it sounds like a good solid name. It’s just not my name. Unless I just got pulled over or need a prescription.
I am a third, named after my grandfather and great grandfather. I go by my middle name because that’s the way it has always been and my first name is a very old man sounding name. I would never expect someone to call me by my first name outside of signing legal documents these days but back in school I had the same problem with roll call on the first day/week. Kids aren’t the nicest people around
Yeah but he does say he was so embarrassed, my just due to the fact he gad to explain to everyone it was Will, but that sounds like a dig at the name ‘john’. Im a Ricky myself since day 1. But technically im named after my grampy Dick or Richard.
Dude I used to go by my last name, for years. Outside of family and girlfriends everybody called be by my last name since the 8th grade. Then I moved to a Phoenix recently, and introduced myself by my first name, and it stuck. It’s been a weird ride.
Yeah my first name is pretty cool. But I lugged a book around for years and started getting nicknamed Lono, and that shit just stuck. And it’s kind of weird, because Lono is a Hawaiian mythological figure and I’m a white dude from Oregon who just liked one of the silliest Hunter S. Thompson books as a kid. But I’ve leaned into it at this point.
I actually think Jesse or Jess is a really cool name for a boy or girl. Our youngest daughter is named Nicole. One day when she was about three months old, her uncle nicknamed her Pippi Longstocking because of her red and black striped babygro. She just recently turned 38 and the whole family still calls her Pippi or Pip. She went all through school up until year 8 as Pip. 🤷🏼♀️
Kit Harringtons' legal name is Christopher. He doesn't dislike the name he has just always been Kit, so when teachers referred to him as Christopher, it was like a strangers name.
At least Kit is a nickname for Christopher, a teacher will accept that without much persuasion. Will is not a nickname for john, so I would imagine he would have to explain the situation. He probably had a teacher think he was pulling a fast one. Nightmare all round really. Why didn't his parents just call him will?
I think Kit for Christopher is one of those nicknames that most people just don’t know any longer. My son’s legal name is John, and he’s always been Jack. These days people think it is short for Jackson 🤢 and don’t even know that Jack has been a nickname for John for centuries.
I feel like *People* could have done a better job reporting this out: My impression, after trying to figure out why he didn’t like his name, was that the embarrassing part is not his name, it’s that he always went by “Will,” so it was embarrassing to always have to correct the teacher and explain that he goes by Will and not John to anybody who didn’t already know him.
I guess I'm struggling with understanding this too. Is "John" an embarrassing name? I know a lot of people by that name.
Maybe it was a generational thing and back when he was a kid it was harder to correct teachers if they called you by the wrong proper name or something.
Otherwise this is really nbd.
This doesn't seem like a crazy thing for a child to find embarrassing. Is it actually embarrassing or significant? No. But neither are most other things children think are embarrassing. I don't know what this reaction is about.
To add on to this, Will is usually short for William. I could definitely see a scenario where you’re trying to correct a substitute teacher or something and they think you’re being a cut up when you tell them, yes I’m John but I go by Will.
Especially when he was in school. Nowadays I don’t think anyone going by another name that isn’t short for anything wouldn’t phase most people but in the 70’s they’d have had a different view of it.
My father, brother, and myself were all called by our middle names and it was tough to correct teachers every year. I eventually gave it up and just go by my first name now. Still trips up family when they hear people call me by my first name.
We had a Japanese exchange student that was incredibly quiet and reclusive for the first few weeks. Eventually some girl took pity and made it her duty to get him to socialize. Didn't take long and before we knew it he was a fucking social butterfly with a girlfriend (different girl), playing in a rock band, and killing it in sports and academics. Guy was even nominated for prom King. During one of our last parties before he had to go back (poor guy didn't want to) I asked him why he was so shy in the beginning and he answered that it's because his name is Daiki. I'm sitting their with a big old question mark on my face and he can't believe I wasn't putting it together. His name is Daiki, it has the word DIE in it. In Asian cultures having any sound resembling death in a name or even letter makes it a really bad omen (why they hate the number 4, it sounds like the word for death) so he thought that when we heard his name had the word DIE in it everyone would cast him away. I couldn't help laughing at it and had to tell him how ridiculous that sounds to Americans. We aren't superstitious about names like that and absolutely wouldn't judge him for something that small. We save that kind of judgement for people with worthy names like our teacher Mr. Butt (true story).
In college I met a student who had come from China. He told us that in kindergarten his whole class picked “American names” from a list that they would go by in English class. He chose Lemon. So the whole time he was in college here he went by Lemon.
My SO has a co-worker named Stirling Leopard. He’s really nice and I wanted to thank him for something or other. But I said “no his real name, not his porn name.”
My SO told him, I guess no one had ever said that to Stirling and he thought it was hilarious.
I had a job where I had to talk to random people from time to time and got some WILD names, mostly from zoomers. I’ve talked to guys named Vegeta and Sephiroth. Girls with full tragedeigh names like Muhkayleigh. People really just put a name on paper and fuck up a future adult’s life.
I unfortunately didn’t meet the kid, but I once sold a birthday cake to the parents of a child named “Thunder”. I asked, and it was his actual name. I told them it was the coolest name I’d ever heard.
Are they related to [Sterling Shepard ?](https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tLP1TcozzFOKqgwYPQSKC5JLcrJzEtXKM5ILUgsSgEAl-8Kag&q=sterling+shepard&oq=steralijg+sh&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDAgCEC4YDRixAxiABDIGCAAQRRg5MgwIARAuGA0YsQMYgAQyDAgCEC4YDRixAxiABDIYCAMQLhgNGK8BGMcBGIAEGJgFGJoFGJ4FMg0IBBC5ARgNGIAEGO8EMgkIBRAAGA0YgAQyCQgGEAAYDRiABDISCAcQLhgNGK8BGMcBGLoCGIAEMgkICBAAGA0YgAQyCQgJEAAYDRiABDINCAoQuQEYDRiABBjvBDIJCAsQABgNGIAEMg0IDBC5ARgNGIAEGO8EMgkIDRAAGA0YgATSAQg0MjQ2ajBqOagCDLACAQ&client=ms-android-verizon-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
Back in the 80s, there was a girl down the block from me named Crystal Ball. She got teased a lot and I remember one day she got fed up and chased the other kids with a knife.
I wanted to name my son Brock Lee, but his mother wouldn't go for it, so I suggested my grandfather's name - which would have made him Earl Lee.
She then had the gall to imply that I wasn't taking the exercise seriously.
Hahaha, no, but that would have been excellent.
I also suggested having "Danger" be his middle name, but she wouldn't go for that either.
With the next kid, we couldn't come up with anything, so I just started to refer to her as Zuul. This was met with some resistance.
The headline is misleading. He wasn’t so much embarrassed by the name John as he was embarrassed of having to correct/remind new teachers every year that he went by Will.
My birth name and all my documents have me as Louie but my whole time at school teachers would write me down as and try to call me Louis. I fucking hated it and it always pissed me off so much
We had a lot of kids in school that went by their middle name. For some reason it was always weird when they were addressed by their first name because it wasn’t what we knew them as.
Got to be a unexplored or unknown to me yet anyway psych phenomena. I too had a strange and strong abhorrence to my own name when I was five. I would beg my parents to change my name it tortured me to no end to think about it and hear it. I went as far as conflating my name with Gonzo a sesame street character that I loathed and disgusted me irrationally. His nose and appearance made me dry heave and I had to turn the TV off anytime he was featured. I had come to associate my name with what I felt was this disgusting creature for reasons unknown and couldn't stand it. For some reason it felt right it fit that my name had some relation to it.
The fact that you don’t love Gonzo says there’s some serious trauma in your childhood. Gonzo is awesome!!
Also, he’s from *The Muppet Show* and the movies. He was never on *Sesame Street*.
Well, the Children’s Television Workshop runs *Sesame Street*, but Henson and The Muppets were central to it. Henson ran and owned *The Muppet Show*. Only Kermit really travels between the two (though Big Bird and other Sesame characters have shown up briefly in Muppet properties.)
Lol now that you mention it, as a kid I would get the actor Delroy Lindo's name in my head and I would repeat it under my breath or in my head over and over for a while dont know why. As an adult this doesn't happen and other than fapping daily also consuming porn if we're being real, I don't have the symptoms other than that, I have no other compulsive behaviors. Mildly socially awkward but that improves greatly depending on my mood and motivation to engage. I do have days where I avoid socialization and I tend to pregame and overthink interactions that have no inherent purpose like small talk, less effort to communicate when there is a specific goal or pertinent issue. Normal guy married with 3 kids. Only complaint my wife has is that I'm a homebody and never want to do anything but work, read and watch movies. It's funny how you picked up on that and I remembered something as random and buried as repeating over and over some B list actors name who while interesting and talented in his own right I'm not what you would call a fan.
At a summer camp I went to when I was kid, there was an 8 year old, no joke, named Harry Wang. I always imagined how that kid must've grown up with that name the second his age group was old enough to understand it. Immigrant parents can fuck you up good I guess.
This kind of reminds me of Romesh Ranganatahan finding out his first name is Jonathan at school.
2 minutes in.
https://youtu.be/5vSaEMXtXEY?si=QFSo24bVGBUi7P5h
My first name is Tuesday, enough said. I get where he’s coming from, 100%. I’ve heard it all, thankfully though, I’m from a relatively small city so by like, 2nd grade everyone knew of me. I didn’t really get bullied for it as much as one would think. I’m 40 now and love my name so much, I’m glad I never thought of changing it.
Both my parents go by their middle names. Not because they dislike them but because they’re family names and their parents differentiated them by using their middle names.
Yeah I grew up with a handful of people who went through the same. I can see why “embarrassing” is the word he used but even in the article he downplays it like “this is silly and I have no idea why it was embarrassing.”
My friend and her siblings all have names that begin with the same letter, but they all go by their middle names. It was like… intentional from their mom. It’s weird.
I personally have a “shortened” version of a longer name so the most I get is people asking me “is your name really just ‘X’ instead of ‘[longer version]’?”
I didn’t click the link, but it would be really funny if his real first name was like “John,” or something completely inoffensive like that.
Edit: …ehhhh…..
I hear ya Will. I didn’t like my name either when I was little and before I started school I wanted to change it to something shorter and cooler, like Mike! My parents said since my name is Bobby I can go by Robert if I like.. damn parents ruining everything
> Ferrell described having to wait through the first week of school before his teachers would remember he went by Will as "excruciating to me." "It wasn't my choice," he said, when Applegate asked about his disdain for the name John. "My parents named [me] John but they called me Will. I grew up as Will, but on a rule sheet, my legal name is John Ferrell."
He must've thrown up every time he's worked with John C. Reilly
I've never really felt one way or the other about my name but it never really occurred to me that there were folks out there that might outright hate it. Now I'm wondering if there are non-Johns who feel this way who see it and go "sorry bro I just can't."
I don’t think that’s what he was saying. My legal name is James but I’m Jim. I was Jimmy the day I was born. I introduce myself as Jim. Most of my public identity is Jim. So besides a cop reading my license or my name being called in the doctor’s office, James feels like Im wearing someone else’s clothes. I don’t mind the name at all. I think it sounds like a good solid name. It’s just not my name. Unless I just got pulled over or need a prescription.
I am a third, named after my grandfather and great grandfather. I go by my middle name because that’s the way it has always been and my first name is a very old man sounding name. I would never expect someone to call me by my first name outside of signing legal documents these days but back in school I had the same problem with roll call on the first day/week. Kids aren’t the nicest people around
Scrublord does sound very old man-ish
That’s Scrublord Travis Beuchamp the Third to you buddy.
I have the same exact problem. Whenever I hear it, it's like no that's my grandpa. Going by your middle name can be tough. People don't understand
Ebenezer? Is that you?
Yeah but he does say he was so embarrassed, my just due to the fact he gad to explain to everyone it was Will, but that sounds like a dig at the name ‘john’. Im a Ricky myself since day 1. But technically im named after my grampy Dick or Richard.
Dude I used to go by my last name, for years. Outside of family and girlfriends everybody called be by my last name since the 8th grade. Then I moved to a Phoenix recently, and introduced myself by my first name, and it stuck. It’s been a weird ride.
As a Victoria who goes by Vicki, I feel the exact same way.
Yoooo go birds
Go birds!
Bird 🦅 Gang for life!
I feel it's a little peculiar. I'd have to take a deep breath and get real high to say "what's going on?". - signed 4 non-Johns
I sang your comment in my head as I read it
Yeah my first name is pretty cool. But I lugged a book around for years and started getting nicknamed Lono, and that shit just stuck. And it’s kind of weird, because Lono is a Hawaiian mythological figure and I’m a white dude from Oregon who just liked one of the silliest Hunter S. Thompson books as a kid. But I’ve leaned into it at this point.
My parents named me Jessica, and even as a kid I hated it. Have been going by another name for a while and am legally changing it this summer
I actually think Jesse or Jess is a really cool name for a boy or girl. Our youngest daughter is named Nicole. One day when she was about three months old, her uncle nicknamed her Pippi Longstocking because of her red and black striped babygro. She just recently turned 38 and the whole family still calls her Pippi or Pip. She went all through school up until year 8 as Pip. 🤷🏼♀️
I couldn't even read this because of that horrible profile name...
Nah. Keith is the name I can’t with.
Kit Harringtons' legal name is Christopher. He doesn't dislike the name he has just always been Kit, so when teachers referred to him as Christopher, it was like a strangers name. At least Kit is a nickname for Christopher, a teacher will accept that without much persuasion. Will is not a nickname for john, so I would imagine he would have to explain the situation. He probably had a teacher think he was pulling a fast one. Nightmare all round really. Why didn't his parents just call him will?
I think Kit for Christopher is one of those nicknames that most people just don’t know any longer. My son’s legal name is John, and he’s always been Jack. These days people think it is short for Jackson 🤢 and don’t even know that Jack has been a nickname for John for centuries.
I didnt know it was short for Christopher. Learned something today
He probably just pretends his name is Jauncy.
For your health.
Thats Will C. Reilly actually
I don't get it. What is so bad about John Ferrell?
I feel like *People* could have done a better job reporting this out: My impression, after trying to figure out why he didn’t like his name, was that the embarrassing part is not his name, it’s that he always went by “Will,” so it was embarrassing to always have to correct the teacher and explain that he goes by Will and not John to anybody who didn’t already know him.
Alright, but it couldn't have been that embarrassing. We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for celebrity anecdotes here.
I guess I'm struggling with understanding this too. Is "John" an embarrassing name? I know a lot of people by that name. Maybe it was a generational thing and back when he was a kid it was harder to correct teachers if they called you by the wrong proper name or something. Otherwise this is really nbd.
Worst thing I can think of is: "I just used the john." or maybe a sex worker calling a customer a John.
Ooooh nooooo I had to correct someone on what generic ass name to call me how will I survive this embarrassment
This doesn't seem like a crazy thing for a child to find embarrassing. Is it actually embarrassing or significant? No. But neither are most other things children think are embarrassing. I don't know what this reaction is about.
To add on to this, Will is usually short for William. I could definitely see a scenario where you’re trying to correct a substitute teacher or something and they think you’re being a cut up when you tell them, yes I’m John but I go by Will. Especially when he was in school. Nowadays I don’t think anyone going by another name that isn’t short for anything wouldn’t phase most people but in the 70’s they’d have had a different view of it.
Yeah I thought his real name was gonna be Gaylord or something
Can't be worse than Focker.
Happy Focking Cake Day!
Gay Feral. I'd personally take pride in that name.
>Gay Feral Welp, time for another Fallout playthrough
You read the name and thought "FO", but I'll bet someone else read the name and thought, "OF".
Maybe he really hates King John, he was a bit of a dick
"...and from this day forth, all the toilets in this kingdom shall be known as "John""
He's just being tongue in cheek I think.
When you see yourself as one name and you get repeatedly called the wrong name due to a technicality, it doesn't feel great.
You have made yourself a powerful enemy, Will.
Obligatory "username checks out"
I'm the same. My parents called me by my middle name. My joke became "Only the government calls me by my first name."
Your parents called you 4?
*You* try coming up with names after having 3 others
He’s the guy they made that movie about.
Divergent intensifies
It’s a shame he didn’t get a better numerical name, like Seven.
>"Only the government calls me by my first name." I'm stealing this, as a middle name child
Have at it! It usually gets a light chuckle and/or a small snort.
Same. My joke is “judges and resumes”. Family name that goes back 6 generations, it was just easier growing up going by my middle name.
Same, my joke was I know I’m in trouble if I hear my full name. Whether it’s grandma or a random letter, phone call, etc.
I have 2 brothers that go/went by their middle name. The oldest made sense because I have a cousin with the same first name.
Same. I've always went by my middle name.
I also go by my middle name in my personal life and I love it. Someone calls asking for my first name I know it’s either a solicitor or work.
My father, brother, and myself were all called by our middle names and it was tough to correct teachers every year. I eventually gave it up and just go by my first name now. Still trips up family when they hear people call me by my first name.
My legal name is a test to see if you actually know me. :D
I went to school with Roland Butter and Rosie Bottom.
Roland Butter is kind of an awesome name
Sounds like something from Harry Potter
That’s definitely Cornelius Fudge’s assistant
We had a Japanese exchange student that was incredibly quiet and reclusive for the first few weeks. Eventually some girl took pity and made it her duty to get him to socialize. Didn't take long and before we knew it he was a fucking social butterfly with a girlfriend (different girl), playing in a rock band, and killing it in sports and academics. Guy was even nominated for prom King. During one of our last parties before he had to go back (poor guy didn't want to) I asked him why he was so shy in the beginning and he answered that it's because his name is Daiki. I'm sitting their with a big old question mark on my face and he can't believe I wasn't putting it together. His name is Daiki, it has the word DIE in it. In Asian cultures having any sound resembling death in a name or even letter makes it a really bad omen (why they hate the number 4, it sounds like the word for death) so he thought that when we heard his name had the word DIE in it everyone would cast him away. I couldn't help laughing at it and had to tell him how ridiculous that sounds to Americans. We aren't superstitious about names like that and absolutely wouldn't judge him for something that small. We save that kind of judgement for people with worthy names like our teacher Mr. Butt (true story).
In college I met a student who had come from China. He told us that in kindergarten his whole class picked “American names” from a list that they would go by in English class. He chose Lemon. So the whole time he was in college here he went by Lemon.
Know a guy named Freud Sigmon.
I went to middle school with a kid who had the initials BLT, and he was a heavy-set kid, so...the poor guy got picked on mercilessly.
Better than Roland Schitt
I once knew a guy who blue himself
Fun fact, Bottom was Joaquin and River Phoenix’s original last name before their parents legally changed the family name during their childhood
I went to school with William Williams
Better than Roland Schitt, mayor or Schitt's Creek
My mom had a classmate named Sterling Silver back in high school. Poor bastard.
My SO has a co-worker named Stirling Leopard. He’s really nice and I wanted to thank him for something or other. But I said “no his real name, not his porn name.” My SO told him, I guess no one had ever said that to Stirling and he thought it was hilarious.
I had a job where I had to talk to random people from time to time and got some WILD names, mostly from zoomers. I’ve talked to guys named Vegeta and Sephiroth. Girls with full tragedeigh names like Muhkayleigh. People really just put a name on paper and fuck up a future adult’s life.
My niece went to school with Rainbow Sunshine. She went by Sunny. But she had a teenage mom and no one in her family stopped her. That poor girl.
I unfortunately didn’t meet the kid, but I once sold a birthday cake to the parents of a child named “Thunder”. I asked, and it was his actual name. I told them it was the coolest name I’d ever heard.
Now Stirling Leopard is a hell of a name!!!
glam rock band
Are they related to [Sterling Shepard ?](https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tLP1TcozzFOKqgwYPQSKC5JLcrJzEtXKM5ILUgsSgEAl-8Kag&q=sterling+shepard&oq=steralijg+sh&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDAgCEC4YDRixAxiABDIGCAAQRRg5MgwIARAuGA0YsQMYgAQyDAgCEC4YDRixAxiABDIYCAMQLhgNGK8BGMcBGIAEGJgFGJoFGJ4FMg0IBBC5ARgNGIAEGO8EMgkIBRAAGA0YgAQyCQgGEAAYDRiABDISCAcQLhgNGK8BGMcBGLoCGIAEMgkICBAAGA0YgAQyCQgJEAAYDRiABDINCAoQuQEYDRiABBjvBDIJCAsQABgNGIAEMg0IDBC5ARgNGIAEGO8EMgkIDRAAGA0YgATSAQg0MjQ2ajBqOagCDLACAQ&client=ms-android-verizon-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
When I grow up I’m going to name my child Leopard Shepard. Thank you all for the inspiration.
Back in the 80s, there was a girl down the block from me named Crystal Ball. She got teased a lot and I remember one day she got fed up and chased the other kids with a knife.
I guess they could have seen that coming in some kind of glass device for viewing the future.
You didn't even try to make this joke work, you just had the concept in your head and said fuck it 😭
Uh, phrasing?
#GO RIL LA
I wanted to name my son Brock Lee, but his mother wouldn't go for it, so I suggested my grandfather's name - which would have made him Earl Lee. She then had the gall to imply that I wasn't taking the exercise seriously.
Was your final suggestion …. Sirius Lee?
Hahaha, no, but that would have been excellent. I also suggested having "Danger" be his middle name, but she wouldn't go for that either. With the next kid, we couldn't come up with anything, so I just started to refer to her as Zuul. This was met with some resistance.
Oh psh it’s not like you wanted to name the kid Gozer! At least Zuul is like, the GATE keeper
See, you get it.
Honest Lee... Who throws a shoe?!
I knew someone named Brock Kelly. Sure enough, hardly anyone actually called him Brock
I went to school with someone called Bates. Our history teacher called him Master Bates all the time.
That teacher sounds like a jerkoff!
It was in the 1980s
You know Lear jets? The guy’s daughter is Crystal Shanda Lear. For real.
I went to school with a girl named Sarah Whitehead, you can’t get a worse name than that
sick ass name tho
I must say, that's a badass name though.
No no, that's a great name if you lean into it.
I knew a crystal amber silver in university. I felt awful for her.
There used to be a client at a firm I worked at named Scott Lund.
I worked with a guy whose mum was called Theresa Green. I went to school with a lad called Benjamin Dover. Some peoples parents are just assholes
What’s wrong with Theresa Green as a name?
Trees are green
That's a bit of a stretch if you ask me
Richard Head would agree
Username checks out as a lawyer!
He was embarrassed by John?
The headline is misleading. He wasn’t so much embarrassed by the name John as he was embarrassed of having to correct/remind new teachers every year that he went by Will.
I get that. Teachers would mispronounce my name all the time and think it was a girls name. My friends thought it was hilarious.
My birth name and all my documents have me as Louie but my whole time at school teachers would write me down as and try to call me Louis. I fucking hated it and it always pissed me off so much
We had a lot of kids in school that went by their middle name. For some reason it was always weird when they were addressed by their first name because it wasn’t what we knew them as.
I don't get the joke at all here. What's wrong with the name John Ferrell?
There’s no joke he just didn’t like correcting people.
I knew a Candace Graham in high school. She never went by Candy.
I went to school with a Rusty Johnson. Sounds like they both could star in some sort of movie together
So no Candy Graham for Mongo jokes??
Horace Dinkleton, saved you a click
That's much more interesting than "my first name is John but I go by Will, my middle name."
Horace Dinkleton goes hard
I used to work for a guy named Gailord Seamon
That’s just ridiculous
I love Will, but my god, what a fucking non-story this is. “Man embarrassed by his first name, John”.
Next up: Michael Keaton embarrassed he shares his real name with another well-known actor.
Got to be a unexplored or unknown to me yet anyway psych phenomena. I too had a strange and strong abhorrence to my own name when I was five. I would beg my parents to change my name it tortured me to no end to think about it and hear it. I went as far as conflating my name with Gonzo a sesame street character that I loathed and disgusted me irrationally. His nose and appearance made me dry heave and I had to turn the TV off anytime he was featured. I had come to associate my name with what I felt was this disgusting creature for reasons unknown and couldn't stand it. For some reason it felt right it fit that my name had some relation to it.
The fact that you don’t love Gonzo says there’s some serious trauma in your childhood. Gonzo is awesome!! Also, he’s from *The Muppet Show* and the movies. He was never on *Sesame Street*.
And yeah my bad for some reason I mix the characters up from either or. Did Henson run both shows?
Well, the Children’s Television Workshop runs *Sesame Street*, but Henson and The Muppets were central to it. Henson ran and owned *The Muppet Show*. Only Kermit really travels between the two (though Big Bird and other Sesame characters have shown up briefly in Muppet properties.)
Is it possible you have OCD? This resembles some of my experience growing up, with weird associations and aversions.
Lol now that you mention it, as a kid I would get the actor Delroy Lindo's name in my head and I would repeat it under my breath or in my head over and over for a while dont know why. As an adult this doesn't happen and other than fapping daily also consuming porn if we're being real, I don't have the symptoms other than that, I have no other compulsive behaviors. Mildly socially awkward but that improves greatly depending on my mood and motivation to engage. I do have days where I avoid socialization and I tend to pregame and overthink interactions that have no inherent purpose like small talk, less effort to communicate when there is a specific goal or pertinent issue. Normal guy married with 3 kids. Only complaint my wife has is that I'm a homebody and never want to do anything but work, read and watch movies. It's funny how you picked up on that and I remembered something as random and buried as repeating over and over some B list actors name who while interesting and talented in his own right I'm not what you would call a fan.
[удалено]
That’s an absolutely lovely name
Thanks for this dogshit nonarticle, OP.
TIL Will Ferrell’s real name is Dogshit Nonarticle
Used to work with a guy called Bernie Doodah.
At a summer camp I went to when I was kid, there was an 8 year old, no joke, named Harry Wang. I always imagined how that kid must've grown up with that name the second his age group was old enough to understand it. Immigrant parents can fuck you up good I guess.
My dad worked in Brooklyn with a guy named Salvatore Manila. He went by Sal
Must be a slow day for news lmao.
When I was in high school there was a new kid named osama, poor bastard never stood a chance.
My friends dad is Chris P. Bacon
Talk about first world problems. WTF
John... he's upset because his first name is John? I must have missed something here.
It’s just John. It’s not really an embarrassing name…
This kind of reminds me of Romesh Ranganatahan finding out his first name is Jonathan at school. 2 minutes in. https://youtu.be/5vSaEMXtXEY?si=QFSo24bVGBUi7P5h
Yes, life was not easy for young Melvin Shart
Am I an asshole if I name my kid Wolfgang?
I thought maybe this was going to have to do with Ferrell = ferel, not John < Will. I want the last 3 minutes of my life back
On the other hand, now he has to duck whenever he hears, "Fire at will!" =)
Did there really need to be an entire article about this?
I was expecting something worse, being called John isn't the end of the world
My first name is Tuesday, enough said. I get where he’s coming from, 100%. I’ve heard it all, thankfully though, I’m from a relatively small city so by like, 2nd grade everyone knew of me. I didn’t really get bullied for it as much as one would think. I’m 40 now and love my name so much, I’m glad I never thought of changing it.
an old supervisor of mine was Don Funk
Everyone named John reading this article 👁️👄👁️
Both my parents go by their middle names. Not because they dislike them but because they’re family names and their parents differentiated them by using their middle names.
My first name is extremely ethnic(there’s a goddamn apostrophe in it) and my middle name is more American than apple pie, so I get it
Yeah I grew up with a handful of people who went through the same. I can see why “embarrassing” is the word he used but even in the article he downplays it like “this is silly and I have no idea why it was embarrassing.” My friend and her siblings all have names that begin with the same letter, but they all go by their middle names. It was like… intentional from their mom. It’s weird. I personally have a “shortened” version of a longer name so the most I get is people asking me “is your name really just ‘X’ instead of ‘[longer version]’?”
Had a highschool classmate. Name was Daniel Daniels. He went by Dan Daniels
I didn’t click the link, but it would be really funny if his real first name was like “John,” or something completely inoffensive like that. Edit: …ehhhh…..
I hear ya Will. I didn’t like my name either when I was little and before I started school I wanted to change it to something shorter and cooler, like Mike! My parents said since my name is Bobby I can go by Robert if I like.. damn parents ruining everything
< Laughs in Peretz Bernstein >
Named after my dad for first name, parents call me by my middle name, as do all my friends.
I find it interesting to name your kid something just to call them a completely different name
lol this how is i feel with an Indian name up while being born and growing up in the USA with an american lifestyle.
My dad hated his first name and went by his middle name. I didn't know his real first name until I was like 10.
Yeah because "Will" is so much better and more original than "John..."
Parents do their children an huge disservice when they name them something ridiculous.
John. Really? I was expecting something really embarrassing. I knew a guy named Anis for example. John. Wow that must have been really tough /s.
It doesn't matter. It's his strawman anyway
is it because people used to refer to using the toilet as heading to or needing to use “the john”
Will Ferrel experiencing part of the trans experience
"People are probably going to be listening to this going 'That is the lamest thing ever,' " Well, yeah.
Grew up with an insanely generic first name. Never been called that by my parents, only ever on forms and first days of school. I get it
As a fellow middle namer, I totally relate.
So what was the point of this article
Could be worse. Could be Gern Blanston.
Could be described in few words best actor