BURGER: Mind if I use your name?

Some people collect arrowheads, stamps, coins and other things you can hide away in drawers or display on the mantel. I collect names.

You cannot live in this world and not be amazed at the names that pass beneath your nose every day. In the newspaper. On sign-in sheets. Printed carefully in square boxes on government forms.

As a writer, they come in handy when composing fiction. To stumble across the perfect name for the smallest character is like finding flint on a cold, dark night.

So I pay attention during introductions, often asking people to spell their names and explain where they came from.

Most are family heirlooms, passed down the generational ladder. Some are cumbersome combinations of favorite relatives.

But it you want to find unusual names, the kind that never left the farm or sleep quietly in the hammock of middle names, you have to know where to look.

My favorite place is the obituaries.

April May June

I rationalize the mining of names of the deceased by telling myself they are gone and no longer need them.

And perhaps my using them again in a fictional story will keep them alive, if only in type.

Some of my favorite first names are Strait, Hassie, LuEthel, Esso, Bella, Tootsie, Zola, Ruby, Fannie, Pearl, Jervey, Hester, Quentin, Garvine, Flossie, Phoebe, Greatly, Blondelle, Mayrelle, Essie and Dimple.

Then there are those wonderful double names, like Ashley Rose, Willa Mae, Jessie Mae, Ida Bell, Sadie Lee, Mary Dawn, and the perfect trifecta, April May June.

There also are new additions such as Aneika, Alvilda, Bontiqua, Quanticia, Antwoine and Chantelle.

And there are the biblical hand-me-downs, such as Jedediah, Hannah, Hosea, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Moses and Joshua.

And of course we're always in need of intriguing last names such as Loveberry, Vanderhoof and Teegarten.

Killer and Koot

Turns out, I'm not the only one enamored by names.

Budsy Howard of James Island spent four years reading the obits and jotting down nicknames until he had a pile of notes, but nothing to do with them, so he sent them to me.

His alphabetical sampling of 958 nicknames included Acie, Ant, Bobo, Big Willie, Chunk, Cakie Joe, Duckie, Dutch, Eggy, Eddie Boo, Frenchy, Fly, Gertie, Gussie, Hambone, Humpty, Iron Dog, Ivy, Jellypop, Jack Gator, Killer, Koot, Lightning, Lovey, Moogoo, Maisie, Nezzie, Nickle, Outlaw, Old Yellow, Puggy, Possum Eye, Queen, Queenie, Rabbit, Rawhide, Slick, Snookie, Tater, Tight Rope, Uncle Joe, Veanie, Vela, Worm, Whistling Joe, Yip, Yah, Zip and Ziggy.

"Now," he said in a note, "They're yours."

Thanks, Budsy, I'll take good care of them.

Reach Ken Burger at kburger@postandcourier.com or 937-5598 or follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Ken_Burger. To read previous columns, go to postandcourier.com/burger.

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