A 41-year old woman in the UK changed her name by legal deed poll recently to this:
Red Wacky League Antlez Broke the Stereo Neon Tide Bring Back Honesty Coalition Feedback Hand of Aces Keep Going Captain Let’s Pretend Lost State of Dance Paper Taxis Lunar Road Up Down Strange All and I Neon Sheep Eve Hornby Faye Bradley AJ Wilde Michael Rice Dion Watts Matthew Appleyard John Ashurst Lauren Swales Zoe Angus Jaspreet Singh Emma Matthews Nicola Brown Leanne Pickering Victoria Davies Rachel Burnside Gil Parker Freya Watson Alisha Watts James Pearson Jacob Sotheran Darley Beth Lowery Jasmine Hewitt Chloe Gibson Molly Farquhar Lewis Murphy Abbie Coulson Nick Davies Harvey Parker Kyran Williamson Michael Anderson Bethany Murray Sophie Hamilton Amy Wilkins Emma Simpson Liam Wales Jacob Bartram Alex Hooks Rebecca Miller Caitlin Miller Sean McCloskey Dominic Parker Abbey Sharpe Elena Larkin Rebecca Simpson Nick Dixon Abbie Farrelly Liam Grieves Casey Smith Liam Downing Ben Wignall Elizabeth Hann Danielle Walker Lauren Glen James Johnson Ben Ervine Kate Burton James Hudson Daniel Mayes Matthew Kitching Josh Bennett Evolution Dreams.
She says she did it to help publicise her charity, which she set up following the death of her 16-year old son. Her new name is 161 words long, and beats by a long way the old Guinness world record holder for the longest name by a living person, who lives in Scotland. His name is merely Barnaby Marmaduke Aloysius Benjy Cobweb Dartagnan Egbert Felix Gaspar Humbert Ignatius Jayden Kasper Leroy Maximilian Neddy Obiajulu Pepin Quilliam Rosencrantz Sexton Teddy Upwood Vivatma Wayland Xylon Yardley Zachary Usansky.
Neither of these can be taken seriously, but I do believe names are very important. I once had a friend, for example, who inherited the last name ‘Stump’ from her parents. One day in her late twenties she decided to change it to ‘Brown’, which was not a wildly exotic choice but it radically changed her level of self-confidence and her life. After many years of merciless teasing throughout her childhood, she just wanted a name that was normal.
Interestingly, she later got married and took her husband’s last name, which I just googled out of interest and discovered she now has the same name as of one of the world’s most famous porn stars. Name karma seems to follow her around!
House, street and town names are important too, as my husband and I discovered in our hunt for a new home here in the UK over the last two years. We had to ask ourselves, could we really live in a village called Little Piddle, Lower Slaughter or Oddington? No matter how lovely the property or how beautiful these locations may be (a street in Lower Slaughter was voted the most romantic in the whole of Britain in a 2011 poll), their names conjure up indelible images we felt we would not want to be associated with. We were, however, tempted by a small village intriguingly called Upper Up, but couldn’t find a suitable property there. And yes, these are real place names. I am not making this up.
People sometimes write to ask me about house numbers. I consider these to be far less important than names. If you have a superstitious belief about, or a bad association with, particular numbers, then this certainly needs to be taken into account when considering a new home. The property itself may be fine, but your association with the house number could work away in your subconscious mind and create a string of difficulties in your life. And it’s not necessarily all roses if you happen to find a house with a number you really like. It can work out fine, but I’ve also known many people who put far too much trust in the number and have come to regret their choice.
Copyright © Clear Space Living Ltd 2012
During college, I lived in a house on Rose Avenue in the town of Bloomington. My brother and his friends lived there for 3 years, then I lived there with my friends for 3 years. During all 6 years, we affectionately called it “The Rose House”. It was my first proper home away from my parents and was incredibly nourishing and supportive to all who lived there.
how would you figure for apartment letters? i live in apt. j. so would i just count off [j = 10] and then add the 1 + 0 together? how would this number relate to the address of the building itself? thanks!
As I say in my article, I consider numbers to be far less important than names, unless you have a superstitious belief about certain numbers. The name of of your apartment block, and the street and town it is in, are more likely to affect your experience of living in that place.
I lived for a while in a village called Bishop’s Itchington in Warks..so many people asked me how the Bishop’s Itch was while I lived there I stopped laughing after a while but the rest of the address described perfectly the house and how I was wanting to live at the time – Stables and Ploughs and so forth – it was a rural property. I now live in a Bower which is appropriate given my career!
In traditional Judaism, most people have two names–a birth name (which is usually in keeping with local naming customs) and a Jewish name (which is Biblical or Hebrew). The meaning of both names–but especially the Jewish one, which is linked to your spirituality–is taken into consideration because it’s thought to influence the personality of the namee. Likewise, if you name a child after someone, it’s done to confer some element of the donor’s characteristics to the child.
When someone becomes dangerously ill, it is the tradition in some Jewish communities to change that person’s name (usually their Jewish name)–often to something that means something like strength, health, or life–in order to influence that person’s fate. Of course, this is seen in many other cultures–especially Native American–where name changes happen when someone undergoes a major life/spiritual change.
I always thought that was an interesting idea–a new name for a new phase of your life. But you have to wonder about the woman with 161 names–some of which aren’t names, but just words or commercial products. That would seem very confusing spiritually–as if she doesn’t know who she really is.
About addresses: I read about the numerological value of your house number, so I added up my current address (3619) and got 1. I added up my grandmother’s house (I lived with her off and on my entire life) (118) and got 1. I added up the two houses I lived in growing up (1603 and 280). I added up my apartment in college (can’t recall the number now, but it also worked out to 1). In short, every place where I have lived for a year or more of my *entire* life has an address value of “1.” I can’t see that as a coincidence!