Some people
are known by their names and some are known by their initials only. I have known several individuals over the years who used their initials, including:
O.M. Nessler (a classmate's older brother)
D.K. Ward (a classmate)
L.W. West (a classmate)
C.B. Gilstrap (my childhood barber)
H.O. Watkins (my daughter-in-law's grandmother's husband)
F.B. Griffis (our church organist's husband)
F.M. Moore, Jr. (choir director and friend for 45 years)
F.M.'s long-dead father was not called F.M. Moore, Sr., however. He was called Frank, which led me some 35 years into my friendship with F.M. to ask him if his name might possibly be Francis Marion. He admitted that it was. My hunch was right. Francis Marion was an American Brigadier General during the Revolutionary War that George III inspired. Marion was nicknamed "The Swamp Fox" for introducing guerilla-like tactics into modern warfare in, of all places, South Carolina.
Lots of people in all walks of life go by their initials. Here are some of them:
J.R.R. Tolkein (author)
K.D. Lang (singer)
A.E. Houseman (poet)
A.A. Milne (creator of Winnie the Pooh)
e.e. cummings (poet)
Y.A. Tittle (professional football player)
J.K. Rowling (author)
N.T. Wright (theologian)
I.M. Pei (architect)
C.S. Lewis (author)
T.S. Eliot (poet)
S.I. Hayakawa (author, academic, politician)
Consider also P.D.Q. Bach, R.E.O. Speedwagon, T.J. Hooker. That last one is a fictional police sergeant played by William Shatner in a television series of the same name. When Agatha Christie created fictional characters she gave them names. Jane Marple. Hercule Poirot. If names work for Agatha Christie, they ought also to work for writers of television scripts.
On second thought, if my parents had named me Clive Staples or Yelberton Abraham, I might prefer to use my initials too.
I'm assuming there were no names with this only the initials. Many people from home went by initials.
ReplyDeleteActually, mos of them had names but went by just their initials. Thanks, Red.
DeleteTwo more: P.G. Wodehouse and G.K. Chesterton. Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. C.S. Lewis was called Jack by his friends.
ReplyDeleteI'ss add these to the list. Thanks, Terra. I also thought of P.T. Barnum of Barnum & Baily Circus fame, but most people probably know his name was Phineas.
DeleteI don't believe I ever knew anyone who only used initials. It is interesting now that you have called it to my attention.
ReplyDeleteIt was fairly common in my neck of the woods. Thanks, Emma.
DeleteI was a teeny bit excited that you mentioned NT Wright.
ReplyDeleteAt one point I had an American friend who had added a "D" to his name just because he wanted to. It wasn't a name, just a D. As in, D Jack Smith. I still think it was a weird thing to do
N.T. Wright's friends called him Tom. T.S. Eliot's friends called him Tom also. Did you know that our President Truman had no middle name so added an S to make it Harry S Truman? And the S did not have a period after it. Strange but true. Thanks, kylie.
DeleteW.B. (William Butler) Yeats, one of my favorite poets. Like me, an Irishman ... woman, in my case, haha. And not for nothing but when TG (my husband, who goes by those initials only on my blog, and even I have forgotten why) and I honeymooned in Charleston in the summer of 1979, we stayed at the Francis Marion Hotel on Citadel square. My TG is a graduate of The Citadel (class of '74) xoxo
ReplyDeleteMuch of my impression of the Citadel is derived from Lords of Discipline so I suppose my view is jaundiced. It was fiction, after all.
ReplyDelete