Humor Post #31 from Middle School’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –

Sometimes I like to watch these old black-and-white crime movies where the bad guy points a gun at somebody and says something like, “Touch my dame, ya’ big lug, and I’ll pump you full of lead.” And most of the guys in those movies have short names like Sam or Joe or Max — you know, cool, tough, punchy names that mean business: Ed or Jim or Roy or Al or Giovanni or Federico or… HOLD IT!! Just hold it right there, bub! Giovanni? Federico? Where’d they come from?

Europe, that’s where? Actually, Italy, to be exact. Apparently in Italy they don’t have names like we do. Their names are all foreign and fancy sounding. Like here if your name is Jake and you moved to Italy and you wanted to sound normal so people wouldn’t look at you funny when you told them your name, you’d call yourself Giacomo (ja KO mo). That’s their name for Jake.

Now I admit I’m more used to the American-type short names we always use. (And no, I’m not including “Crankenfuss.” You know that’s not my real name. It’s my nom de plume. (Don’t know that one, do you? That’s pen name in French.) I also know some people who have some pretty European sounding names, like Isabella and Olivia and Christopher. So maybe we’re changing to be more like them.

Well, I can think of someone who’s already used that tactic and it sure hasn’t hurt him. That would be Leonardo DiCaprio. He could be just good old Leo, but no, he likes being Leonardo. And you can’t argue with the results. I mean, practically everyone in the world has seen Titanic and for girls, that would be about six times each!

So I got interested in this and I did some web research to show how you can make your name turn into a really fancy sounding name by translating it into Italian. I put the European names first and made it where you can hear someone say them. (That someone is Daniel, who agreed to help me, and I said okay ’cause I didn’t know anybody else who could come even close to saying those names right. So if he says them wrong, it ain’t my fault, okay?) Then I made it so you have to guess what the American translation is for each name. I think you’ll be pretty surprised at how much cooler the European name sounds than the American one. Can’t help it, but that’s the way it is. So if you have one of those names on the right, maybe you should think about changing it. Just trying to be helpful.

This is super high tech, so I’ll tell you how it works. Read the Italian name on the left to yourself. If it’s kind of hard, just click on the name to hear how to pronounce it. Then guess what that name is in English. Click on the ???? in the English column to find out if you were right. I think you’ll be very surprised. And if you happen to have the exact name that comes up on the right, you’re in luck. Your new Italian name is all ready to go.

P.S. I know #6 (Louis la Colle) is in French. That’s because I couldn’t figure out how to translate the English name into Italian and the French translation was so cool, I used that instead.
BTW, thanks to Google Translate for helping me on this. And thanks to Maureen for setting up the source code.

So all I’m saying is if you got a name like Hairy Mary, maybe it would do you some good to change it to its Italian version, Maria Pelosa. It might even help you get a date. (Probably your first one, I would guess.)

from your I’ll-do-the-cooking-and-you-just-sit-back-and-enjoy-your-fancy-meal advisor and Truth Teller,
Dr. Crankenfuss