February 03, 2004

COULDN'T HELP BUT NOTICE

John Kerry's wife goes by the name Teresa Heinz.

Can't say I blame her. Who really wants to be tagged as "Terry Kerry?"

PAD

Posted by Peter David at February 3, 2004 01:34 AM | TrackBack | Other blogs commenting
Comments
Posted by: M. J. Finklestein at February 3, 2004 03:47 AM

Yah, but she was the wife of late PA Senator John Heinz, and in her own has been very political about a small pile of things. She had "a name" for herself as Theresa Heinz before she got married again.

I'm sure she gets plenty of ketchup jokes. Damned if you do....

Posted by: Jason Henningson at February 3, 2004 05:44 AM

Could be worse. He could have a son named Harry Kerry.

Posted by: Bill Mulligan at February 3, 2004 06:37 AM

This isn't going to start a whole bunch of "If John Kerry married Chuck Berry he'd be John kerry Berry" type jokes is it? 'Cause they're a whole lot less funny than, say, exploding sperm whales.

Posted by: Pete at February 3, 2004 07:34 AM

I agree. It would be very scary to be Terry Kerry.

Posted by: Genevieve Gervais at February 3, 2004 09:04 AM

I wonder if their song at their wedding was "Anticipation".

Genvie

Posted by: Tony Tower at February 3, 2004 09:22 AM

My buddy last name of McCarrie was wed to a girl named Keri. She tends to use her maiden name.

Can't say as I blame her. . . :)

- Tony Tower

Posted by: Elayne Riggs at February 3, 2004 09:43 AM

Considering her financial well-being thanks to the Heinz family fortune, it's unsurprising in about 57 ways that she's keeping a famous name as her surname.

Posted by: Tim Lynch at February 3, 2004 09:50 AM

A friend of mine has the last name McKerral, and is more or less engaged to a man she adores.

She's not planning on hyphenating her name once they're married, though. See, his last name is Burnett, and there's no way she's going to go with McKerral-Burnett.

True story.

TWL

Posted by: Grenadier at February 3, 2004 10:48 AM

My 1st grade teacher was Candace Kean. She got married that summer, and invited the class to attend. Her husband's name: Jerry Kane. So we watched her become Mrs. Candy Kane! :-)

Posted by: Todd P. Emerson at February 3, 2004 11:26 AM

Back in my art school days, I had a dorm roommate whose last name was Keller. A girl on our floor - for whom he had a major case of the hots - burst into our room one day and announced to him, "I can't marry you! Then I'd be HELEN KELLER!" She and I found that highly amusing. Can't say the same for him, though...

Also, at a previous job, I worked with a guy with the last name of Taylor, who had to go and marry a woman named Elizabeth. If memory serves, she made sure to go by "Lisa" instead.

Then, at an even more previous job, I met a gal who had a hyphenated last name. Wondering aloud which letter I should choose to file her paperwork, she offered, "Well, I should be easy enough to remember. How many 'Green-Johnson's have you seen?" As it was my literal first day on this job, I chose not to say a word, lest I never see a second day there.

I am not making this up,

TPE

Posted by: Peter David at February 3, 2004 11:27 AM

I guess we should have known. Here Kerry was running so far behind, but thanks to his wife, he was able to ketchup.

PAD

Posted by: Brian at February 3, 2004 11:53 AM

As the brother-in-law of someone whose last name is Ramming, who inherited a dog named Woody, I say it could be a lot worse.

Posted by: Den at February 3, 2004 12:06 PM

I used to work with a woman who had married in the Banger family. Her first name was Joy.

Yup.

Joy Banger.

Posted by: Den at February 3, 2004 12:10 PM

Yah, but she was the wife of late PA Senator John Heinz, and in her own has been very political about a small pile of things. She had "a name" for herself as Theresa Heinz before she got married again.

Another you should know about Theresa Heinz. She was born in Africa. About ten years ago, she caught a huge amount of flack from the PC police for identifying herself as an "African-American" because she's white.

Posted by: Chad Anderson at February 3, 2004 01:25 PM

The sad thing is that recently she's been going by Heinz-Kerry in the context of the campaign, pretty much as a sop to all the folks out there who still can't handle a woman keeping her name after marriage.

Posted by: Steven Marsh at February 3, 2004 01:42 PM

I'm just so glad they got over their hippie phase and decided against naming their first child Voices:

"Hush, hush! Keep it down now, Voices Kerry!"

Posted by: Peter David at February 3, 2004 01:55 PM

I had a drama teacher in college, first name "Ann," who (no fooling) married a guy with the last name of "Tilove." Making her "Ann Tilove." Absolutely true.

Of course, let us not forget that if Olivia Newton-John had married her Grease co-star, John Travolta, she'd be Olivia Newton-John-Travolta.

PAD

Posted by: Nytwyng at February 3, 2004 02:22 PM

Can't say I blame her. Who really wants to be tagged as "Terry Kerry?"

I dunno...talk to my dad's former customer, Shirley. Despite protestations that she'd never marry her boyfriend because of his last name, it wasn't long before they wed and she became Shirley Turley.

Posted by: Den at February 3, 2004 02:51 PM

The sad thing is that recently she's been going by Heinz-Kerry in the context of the campaign, pretty much as a sop to all the folks out there who still can't handle a woman keeping her name after marriage.

So, not that Kerry is the presumptive front runner, how long until the GOP vilifies her for hyphenating the way that they did Hillary Rodham-Clinton?

Posted by: Barriolever at February 3, 2004 10:19 PM

A woman named Duby McDowell served for many years as a political reporter for local TV stations in Hartford, CT and now runs a consulting firm in the area. Little known is that she is married to a gentleman with the surname DuBay. Unsurprising as it is that she elected to keep the maiden nomenclature, there is a certain charm in wondering, "What would Duby DuBay do?"

Posted by: Rik Levins at February 3, 2004 10:20 PM

Here's one PAD should enjoy: Many years ago I saw a mention in my local newspaper, about a man named William Marvel. Seems he was an Air Force officer and had recently been promoted to the rank of Captain.

Don't know if he was a pilot, but I did get a chuckle imagining an air traffic controller's face upon hearing, "Captain Marvel, coming in for a landing on runway 12..."

Posted by: nekouken at February 4, 2004 12:23 AM

Terry Kerry wouldn't be so bad. My cousin, Dennis Carey, married a girl named Carrie a few years ago.

Posted by: Peter Badore at February 4, 2004 02:18 AM

Aw, that's nothin'! Years ago, I worked in a restaurant where the chef's surname was Horr. No lie! He once related a story where his family went out to have their portrait done. They were waiting with several other families to be called on when the photographer finally announced "All right, all you Horrs line up over here".

Whenever the boss made fun of his name he excalimed "I'm proud to be a Horr! I come from a long legacy of Horrs!"

Try and top that.

Posted by: Tim Lynch at February 4, 2004 09:26 AM

Dunno if I can top it (or whether I'd really want to, for that matter), but speaking from personal experience...

My last name is Lynch.

My wife's last name is Hazard. (And yes, as a biologist she's quite proud to have a "Caution: Bio Hazard" sign on her office door.)

If we hyphenate for kids' names, our kids are in fact completely doomed.

TWL

Posted by: Peter David at February 4, 2004 09:49 AM

This just in:

In a shocking turn of events, country legend Johnny Cash has come back from the grave to announce his candidacy and become the immediate front runner. Kerry, deferring to this unholy turn of events, has agreed to become the man in black's VP, forming the ticket of Cash and Kerry.

PAD

Posted by: Alan M. at February 4, 2004 05:28 PM

When Gephardt was still in the race, I thought it would be nice if his wife, Jane, had been more directly involved in the race. That way, when someone published a book about his campaign, they could call it "Run With Dick And Jane".

Posted by: Tim Lynch at February 4, 2004 08:34 PM

"Cash and Kerry" has already been done -- didn't Newsweek use that as a headline recently about the money Kerry's collected from lobbyists?

I think you're the first to bring Johnny in, though. :-)

TWL

Posted by: Tom Galloway at February 4, 2004 08:36 PM

And then there are names that seem perfectly reasonable at the time, but then something happens...

For example, in the late '90s/early '00s, the University of Pennsylvania's best basketball player was one Michael Jordan. If you do the math, you realized that he was born just before the much more famous MJ started attending UNC-Chapel Hill, and so wasn't named after him.

Somewhat similar was the fictional name used for the protagonist of Greatest American Hero being changed from "Hinckley" after Reagan's attempted assassination by someone with that name.

And my personal favorite of "Well, if you'd just not gone there it wouldn't have been a problem"...there was an MIT student by the name of Constance Plank. (for the non-physics types, Planck's Constant is something that everyone at MIT would be well aware of).

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