What's in a name?

I was perusing the public notices in last night's Davis Enterprise. (You don't read these? Riveting stuff; I recommend them.) Businesses old and new file fictitious business name statements with the county (the Richardson Group/Richardson United is really just Tobin Richardson; a group of one, apparently; and nice to see the Pincushion Boutique is still opening its doors here in Davis.)

But the most fascinating listings are the ones headed "Order to Show Cause for Change of Name." Quite a few people want, or need, to change their names, and to do it legally, they must go to court, get a case number and a hearing date, and run a public notice in the newspaper of record (in Yolo County's case, the aforementioned Enterprise) to alert everybody that, unless someone objects, the bloke they used to know as Joe Smith will hereinafter be known as Joe Jones.

The fun lies in musing on why Joe Smith now wants to be Joe Jones. Last night's paper printed several name changes, and by and large they were pretty straightforward. Joseph Vincent wants to change his name to Joseph Vincent Calabro. Was Calabro a family name that got dropped someplace along the family tree? Maybe Joseph Vincent married someone whose last name is Calabro, and felt the thoughtful gesture would be to tack his spouse's name onto his. Slightly more enigmatic is Earl Thompson's petition to become Ej Thompson. I've never seen "Ej" as a name before and wonder, among other things, how it's pronounced: "Edge," maybe, or perhaps "Eej." "Ej" could be the name of a popular rapper, or have some religious significance. Curious.

What's in a name? Whatever the court decrees.