Names, Words, Success, and Acronyms

            In an apocryphal anecdote, Cole Porter's mother added a singular "A" to Cole Porter's name because she had heard that people whose name spelled a word were more successful in life.  If there is indeed that much power in the initials of a name we may be left to wonder how much intentional or coincidental gematriya was employed in the selection of the center initial.  If we assume that Ms. Porter was set on both the name "Cole" and wanted her son to have only three initials then she would only have had two options, "A" and "U."  By going with "A" she chose the first letter of the alphabet, perhaps indicating that she wanted her son to be "first" in whatever he did.  But she also chose a far more common letter and ladled her son with a seemingly symbolically unremarkable name. 

            By the same standards my own name dooms me to insignificance, but perhaps not as extreme as my parents LMF, NPF, or my brother, DJF.  My brother currently has nearly 18000 followers on twitter.  Imagine how many he could have if my parents had the foresight to make sure his middle name started with “a” (daf: a Persian drum resembling a tambourine, but without the cymbals).  My Uncle Steve, accepted as a success within my family and the statistician community, has the only set of initials with a readily pronounceable unit; SEF. 

A cursory check of Forbes’ top 100 most wealthy people for 2012 indicates that not a single one of those billionaires has a name which spells a word.  Of course there are many other indicators of success which are measured in more elusive individual ways.  For instance, I was unable to find a list of the top 100 happiest people in the world, or the most satisfied.  No certain conclusions can be drawn from this list.  The survey of the forbes list indicates that whether your name represents an esteemed acronym, common word, or even, a clean slate, success is still a possibility.  Clearly there are possibilities for further research.

Choice acronyms for each of my family members presented in alphabetical order, followed by the total number of acronyms (as listed on acronyms.thefreedictionary.com):

DJF - Daniel James Fienberg

Divorced Jewish Female

Djibouti Franc (ISO currency code)

Total: 2

LMF - Lorne Michael Fienberg

Lacking Moral Fiber

Library Management Facility

Light Manufacturing Facility

Logical Mainframe

Lutheran Ministries of Florida

Total: 15

NPF - Nona Paula Fienberg

National Park Foundation

National Peanut Festival

Nigerian Police Force

No Problem Found

Nuclear Power Facility

Total: 24

OJF - Ori Joseph Fienberg

Online Job Facility

Order of Sir John Franklin

Total: 3

My Unique Name --- An Interlude

I am the only "Ori Fienberg" in North America, and for now, if Google is to be believed, the world.

Some of this is because "Ori" is a unique name outside of Israel. Some of it is because "Fienberg" is a unique spelling (The likely apocryphal story of why the family name is "Fienberg" is worthy of it's own post on another day).

When I first started to care about what popped up when someone searched for me on the internet I would always start by typing in my name without quotes. Invariably I would be prompted: "Do you mean Ori Feinberg?" Who was this person who shared my name, but for a slight spelling variation (also, I don't know his middle name)? Why did Google prefer him over me? What did I have to do to be the dominant "Ori F---berg" (there's also an "Ori Fineberg" in Israel)? Apparently Mr. Feinberg has an MA in Contemporary Art, and at the time was an aspiring gallery owner. Every now and then I'd receive an e-mail intended for Mr. Feinberg, sometimes in Hebrew, which I'd forward along to him.

Last night I was checking my e-mail and saw that one of my colleagues had sent out a general update in which she instructed students who did not know their Workshop times to e-mail me. Great! But evidently she doesn't know how to spell my last name because she gave them the g-mail address for Mr. Feinberg. I e-mailed the students with my real e-mail (which the students and my colleague should have anyway), and then I sent an e-mail to Mr. Feinberg, apologizing for the random queries he might get, and asking if he could please forward them to me.

Later this morning he replied to say he would (he never has before, and given how often my name is spelled wrong on name tags at events, I can't imagine that he hasn't received anything before), and then suggested that in order to avoid this in the future I should change from g-mail to Yahoo. While I can't help but feel some small connection to Mr. Feinberg, in part because of our names, and in part because we both value the arts, his response seemed rather presumptuous. I never told him he should change *his* account when I received his e-mail.

Perhaps his suggestion stems from some insecurity: not long after I discovered he existed through Google's suggestions I eclipsed "the other Ori F" in internet presence. I suspect when he Googles his own name it asks him if he meant "Ori Fienberg." I've been there, so if this is the case I understand his irritation. But despite this and the minor inconvenience he may have had in the past when he deleted messages intended for me and now when he may choose to forward me a few student e-mails, I don't have any plans to change the main e-mail account I've had for 7 years.

Mysteries in Data Entry

I check a tutor sheet for 5/15/09. One of the students on the intake
form is listed as:

Susan Bivian (w/ Mick)

I think, ah, two students have come in to the writing center. Susan
signed in and she didn’t know Mick’s last name, so she just wrote
“Mick.”

Then I get to the next tutor form for 5/15/09 where one of the
students on the intake form is listed as:

Susan Bibiano (w/Dick)

That’s funny I think, so I consult the tutor names on the intake form
and discover that on 5/15/09 both “Mick” and “Dick” were serving as
tutors, so these Susans visited both tutors, and that cuts the numbers
of visits from 4 to 2.

Then I look them up in the student rolls to find their schools. There
is no Susan Bivian. There is no Susian Bibiano.

There is one student, a Susan Biliano. So I note it with a star on the
intake forms, and then add 1 writing center visit to the column for
the “PATH” school on 5/15/09.

That’s 1 visit out of a total of around 1500 I have to sort through.

O.J. would make it clear that it's part of his tutors' jobs to spell their students name correctly on the intake sheet (ask them to do it, or just ask them how to spell them. He'd also encouraged them to only make one entry, per student, per visit. But then, O.J. wonders why anyone in this day and age is still doing handwritten intake sheets, rather than using an online scheduling and data entry form, or at least adding the pertinent information to an excel spreadsheet.

From "Sports"

http://sports.espn.go.com/news/story?id+3790763

There are many fire starters in this article, so let me just put it out there that I appreciate the challenges Lana has had to face as a transgendered person.  Coming out as transgendered in sports is probably especially difficult and I hope she will continue to be successful in many more long-drive competitions, if that's her goal.  

No, what I'm most concerned with are the names.  Lana Lawless sounds like name of a mid-80s porn starlet, which is probably going to make her journey towards acceptance that much harder, but that's far better than the expert Golfweek found to comment on the situation. 

"I am shocked more women are not complaining about this," said Sean "The Beast" Fister.

That name sure is tough.  In fact it's hard for me to imagine a tougher one.  Maybe he could have been Arnold, or even Adolf "The Beast" Fister.  Maybe his original name was McFisterstein and he changed it to avoid mockery.  Perhaps he had a tough time with it in high school because in fact he's a nice guy who writes sonnets, volunteers at the local homeless shelter, and plays the flute.  In fact he's probably a flute-beast, thus the nickname.

However given the name of his website: http://www.longdriving.com and his own name and nickname choice it's hard to believe he's not actually a successful gay pornstar.  And guess what guys:  He's available for parties!

In reality, "The Beast" is a three time long-drive champion, and, if we had to guess based on just his comments, a total asshole.  In the Beast's defence, he's a father of three, and the Sean Fister Classic raises funds for youth organizations in Central Arkansas.  It's just a shame about his name, and that when Golfweek came calling for this story he didn't just say, as I would have said it, if I said it: "No comment."