The Name Game of My Life
Have you ever noticed what it is about names? Like people of wealth and importance always seem to be given names at birth that sound prestigious or aristocratic. Take for instance the names of President’s, like John Quincy Adams; Rutherford Birchard Hayes, George Herbert Walker Bush, even Clinton has the name of William Jefferson Clinton. I mean, is it a coincidence or something?
Then there are the names that get slaughtered…like Koepke (Kep-Key). Go ahead, spell that for me if you can. (Well if you can't spell it after I've showed you how there's no hope for you.) Now you see why it gets slaughtered and me along with it. Koepke is spelled K-O-E-P-K-E. Now how in the world do you get Koepke out of a spelling like that? I mean, it defies the logic of the English rules of pronunciation. People are just trying to say it the way they were taught to sound things out in school…that is, if they were paying any attention at all to the English teacher. Now if we were to use the argument that the first vowel is long and the last vowel is short it would be Ko-ep-ke the “o” with a long sound and both “e’s” with a short sound.
My Brother had it right when he gave himself the nick- name Kep before anyone else could start hacking up our last name. Just Kep, known to all his friends and business associates up until the day he passed away. In his obituary his name headlined the column with the name of James (Kep) Koepke.
Now as for me, I wasn’t smart enough to do that and I’ve continued to struggle thru life with everyone taking aim at my last name and just slaughtering it. Ko-op-key, Ko-ep-key, Keep-key, Cop-key and on and on it goes.
My life with names doesn’t get any better. When my mother moved my brother and I to a new town after she and dad got divorced, the kids on the block welcomed me to the neighborhood by giving me the nick-name Leopard. No not Tiger, it seems some other kid had that nick-name even though I don’t ever remember anyone who we called Tiger…but never the less I got Leopard! Now whoever heard of a kid’s nick-name being Leopard? You know, an all black cat from an all white middle class neighborhood! Go figure?
My mother didn’t bless me with a powerful or distinguishing first name either. My first name is Craig. Hello my name is Craig, Craig Bond. Not exactly a name that inspires a sense of toughness, or sophistication for that matter. Also it seems to be a curse with my first name and last name starting with the hard K sound. Kraig Koepke. It makes it hard to say the name; it almost hurts as you slap your tongue around inside your mouth to get out two hard K sounds in a row.
My poor wife who had nothing to do with my last name has the problem that her first name is VicKi. She gets slapped with my convoluted last name and the double K whip lashing by no fault of her own. Ah but her mother, Hilda… I’ve been married to Vicki for almost thirty seven years and Hilda still thinks my first name is Greg. No kidding. Greg. She can’t get Craig in her mind for what ever reason and now that she is eighty four I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.
My father-in-law Al, he was a man’s man. He came from a he-man family. Construction work, able to build a tank out of a tin can, worked in the dirt all of his life type of guy. Last name McFADDEN! He-man sounding, the kind of name that you envision some guy who could bend a crow bar and twist it into the shape of a pretzel without breaking a sweat.
I was sitting out back with Al one Saturday having a beer when one his construction buddies stopped by. Al of course, wanting to be somewhat polite, tries to introduce me to his friend and says… “John this is my son-in-law Craig” (got the first name right) then he sits there and his face drew this big ole blank look. HE COULDN’T REMEMBER MY LAST NAME!!! Forget about trying to pronounce it, he couldn’t even remember it.
Things didn’t get any better name-wise as time went on. I went to work for the railroad…finally a he-man’s kind of job. Well, on one of my first trips out, I came into the yard office and the conductor is sitting there looking over his work orders and not knowing who I was, being new and all…he says out loud with a puzzled look on his face, “who is… Ko-op-key, Keep-ke?” I step up to him and I said “its pronounced Koepke.” He looks up and stares at me, and then looks back down at the name on the work orders, and then looks back up at me and says…”okay cupcake.” CUPCAKE?! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? Well as they say on the railroad, nothing travels faster than talk. What’s said in Kansas City today will be in Chicago by morning. AND IT WAS! From then on it was Cupcake.
That though, is not the end of the name massacre’s in my life. One of the yardmasters said that if I had a red marking on my forehead I’d resemble General Gorbachev. You got it, I then became General Cupcake.
Cupcake was so distinguishing that a few years later after I had quit the railroad, I was sitting one day at a new job and we were going through some training when I struck up a conversation with the guy next to me. I mentioned that I used to work on the railroad. Well as the conversation carried on, it seems that we had a few acquaintances in common. After a short while he starts laughing to himself and asks…”you ain’t Cupcake are you?”
I couldn’t believe it! It seems the whole community only knows of this guy who used to work on the railroad known as CUPCAKE!
Well there you have it, a short history of my name. No, I wasn’t blessed with a name that goes with fame or even just an ordinary name. Oh well, it will have to do for now as I’m not about to get rid of an old friend like my name just because people have a hard time pronouncing it. We’ve been through too much together to shuck each other off now. So get used to it because my name is “Koepke” (Kep-Key), that’s K-O-E-P-K-E, and we’re here to stay.
Then there are the names that get slaughtered…like Koepke (Kep-Key). Go ahead, spell that for me if you can. (Well if you can't spell it after I've showed you how there's no hope for you.) Now you see why it gets slaughtered and me along with it. Koepke is spelled K-O-E-P-K-E. Now how in the world do you get Koepke out of a spelling like that? I mean, it defies the logic of the English rules of pronunciation. People are just trying to say it the way they were taught to sound things out in school…that is, if they were paying any attention at all to the English teacher. Now if we were to use the argument that the first vowel is long and the last vowel is short it would be Ko-ep-ke the “o” with a long sound and both “e’s” with a short sound.
My Brother had it right when he gave himself the nick- name Kep before anyone else could start hacking up our last name. Just Kep, known to all his friends and business associates up until the day he passed away. In his obituary his name headlined the column with the name of James (Kep) Koepke.
Now as for me, I wasn’t smart enough to do that and I’ve continued to struggle thru life with everyone taking aim at my last name and just slaughtering it. Ko-op-key, Ko-ep-key, Keep-key, Cop-key and on and on it goes.
My life with names doesn’t get any better. When my mother moved my brother and I to a new town after she and dad got divorced, the kids on the block welcomed me to the neighborhood by giving me the nick-name Leopard. No not Tiger, it seems some other kid had that nick-name even though I don’t ever remember anyone who we called Tiger…but never the less I got Leopard! Now whoever heard of a kid’s nick-name being Leopard? You know, an all black cat from an all white middle class neighborhood! Go figure?
My mother didn’t bless me with a powerful or distinguishing first name either. My first name is Craig. Hello my name is Craig, Craig Bond. Not exactly a name that inspires a sense of toughness, or sophistication for that matter. Also it seems to be a curse with my first name and last name starting with the hard K sound. Kraig Koepke. It makes it hard to say the name; it almost hurts as you slap your tongue around inside your mouth to get out two hard K sounds in a row.
My poor wife who had nothing to do with my last name has the problem that her first name is VicKi. She gets slapped with my convoluted last name and the double K whip lashing by no fault of her own. Ah but her mother, Hilda… I’ve been married to Vicki for almost thirty seven years and Hilda still thinks my first name is Greg. No kidding. Greg. She can’t get Craig in her mind for what ever reason and now that she is eighty four I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.
My father-in-law Al, he was a man’s man. He came from a he-man family. Construction work, able to build a tank out of a tin can, worked in the dirt all of his life type of guy. Last name McFADDEN! He-man sounding, the kind of name that you envision some guy who could bend a crow bar and twist it into the shape of a pretzel without breaking a sweat.
I was sitting out back with Al one Saturday having a beer when one his construction buddies stopped by. Al of course, wanting to be somewhat polite, tries to introduce me to his friend and says… “John this is my son-in-law Craig” (got the first name right) then he sits there and his face drew this big ole blank look. HE COULDN’T REMEMBER MY LAST NAME!!! Forget about trying to pronounce it, he couldn’t even remember it.
Things didn’t get any better name-wise as time went on. I went to work for the railroad…finally a he-man’s kind of job. Well, on one of my first trips out, I came into the yard office and the conductor is sitting there looking over his work orders and not knowing who I was, being new and all…he says out loud with a puzzled look on his face, “who is… Ko-op-key, Keep-ke?” I step up to him and I said “its pronounced Koepke.” He looks up and stares at me, and then looks back down at the name on the work orders, and then looks back up at me and says…”okay cupcake.” CUPCAKE?! WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? Well as they say on the railroad, nothing travels faster than talk. What’s said in Kansas City today will be in Chicago by morning. AND IT WAS! From then on it was Cupcake.
That though, is not the end of the name massacre’s in my life. One of the yardmasters said that if I had a red marking on my forehead I’d resemble General Gorbachev. You got it, I then became General Cupcake.
Cupcake was so distinguishing that a few years later after I had quit the railroad, I was sitting one day at a new job and we were going through some training when I struck up a conversation with the guy next to me. I mentioned that I used to work on the railroad. Well as the conversation carried on, it seems that we had a few acquaintances in common. After a short while he starts laughing to himself and asks…”you ain’t Cupcake are you?”
I couldn’t believe it! It seems the whole community only knows of this guy who used to work on the railroad known as CUPCAKE!
Well there you have it, a short history of my name. No, I wasn’t blessed with a name that goes with fame or even just an ordinary name. Oh well, it will have to do for now as I’m not about to get rid of an old friend like my name just because people have a hard time pronouncing it. We’ve been through too much together to shuck each other off now. So get used to it because my name is “Koepke” (Kep-Key), that’s K-O-E-P-K-E, and we’re here to stay.
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