What's in a Name-Name

Hyphe-nation

            If you had to guess what Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmalz is known for, you would probably not ...

            But let us pause. To savor that name.

            Constantine, Christian; Samuel, Jewish.

            Rafinesque, French (his father); Schmalz, German (his mom).

            Constantine, Samuel and Rafinesque, each three syllables; Schmalz, one. Nice rhythm, which I would scan as three dactyls and a Schmalz.

             Raffiné means refined, maybe too refined (especially with that -esque); schmalz is chicken fat.

            That, my friends, is a great hyphenated name.

            What you would probably not guess is that Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmalz was the eccentric French-born naturalist who, at Transylvania University in Kentucky in 1819, came up with the scientific name for the smallmouth buffalo fish: Ictiobus bubalus.

            I had always heard about buffalo fish, but never had run into one, and then I saw buffalo fish advertised on the side of a store in a Walker Evans photograph, so I decided it was time to Google that fish.

            And I found Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmalz. I hope you are as pleased as I am. Which is to say, as punch.

            It turns out, the man named Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmalz is a fascinating character, entirely self-educated and therefore not honored before his death, even though he proposed an astute theory of biological evolution twenty-nine years before Darwin did.

            If you are familiar with my own hair theory of human evolution, laid out in my book about hair, It Grows on You: A Hair-Raising Survy of Human Plumage (Doubleday, 1986) -- a theory that no one (so far as I know) has ever given the time of day, you will know why Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmalz, the man, appeals to me.

            But the name is what I am eager to share.

            You are undoubtedly wondering, as I did, why C. S. R-S (let's call him) refrained from naming the buffalo fish at least partially for himself. Turns out he named 6700 flora and fauna in all, including Rafinesque's Big-eared Bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii).           That bat's head looks unsettlingly like a rabbit's.

            A buffalo fish is a sucker, but good eating.

            Enough. I see now, having Googled the man, that the excellent writer John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote an essay about Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmalz that is reprinted in Sullivan's book Pulphead. Which I have somewhere, and so should you.

            I will find Pulphead straightaway and no doubt will admire Sullivan's take on a jus-doin-what-comes-naturally naturalist.

            But I set out, here, to write about hyphenated names. Which seem to be cropping up everywhere these days. (That's my newsy hook.)

            You expect to find beautiful hyphenated names in P. G. Wodehouse novels:

            Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Cyril Bassington-Bassington, Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle, Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps, Francis Pashley-Drake, Pongo Twistleton-Twistleton, Freddie Fitch-Fitch, Pinky-Boodles (a Pekinese), and Freddie Fitch-Fitch. And Jack Bellamy-Johnstone, who had the name of Esmeralda Parkinson-Willoughby tattoed on his wishbone, then they broke up and he got engaged to May Todd.

            You might not be surprised to see a hyphenated byline in Vanity Fair (Durga Chew-Bose, Alice Brudenell-Bruce) or the New York Review of Books (Joshua Jelly-Schapiro).

            But these days, hyphenated names are busting out all over. In sports alone we have had Juju Smith-Schuster, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarot, Shai Gilgeous-Alexnder, Jaryd Emanuel Jones-Smith, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Xavier Woodson-Luster, Laurent Duverney-Tardif, Ha'Sean Treshon "Ha Ha" Clinton-Dix, Marquez Reshard Valdes-Scantling, Dwayne Orso-Bacchus, Nyeem Wartman-White, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Darrius Heyward-Bey. Isiah Kiner-Falefa, the young Yankee shortstop, has a name with a nice cultural range including an out-of-nowhere shoutout to the late unhyphenated

            Oh, wait

            slugger-broadcaster Ralph Kiner. And according to baseball-reference.com, Kiner-Falefa "started his first game as a catcher and formed one half of the first hyphenated battery in major league history when he caught Austin Bibens-Dirkx, who started the game on the mound."

            I might also note that a couple of years ago the world discovered, at last, what Tim Tebow, the virgin quarterback, was looking for in a woman. The one that he married was not only a Miss Universe but also a double-hyphenate:

Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters.

            Even great hyphenated names can be criticized. Oh, I guess if Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, the North Carolina Congressional candidate, ended her name with an i instead of an a, it would be just too, too glamorous. For a Democrat.

            You know what I had in mind for this posting? I was going to hearken back to the Democratic-Republican Party of Jefferson and Jackson, and of James Monroe during what was called The Age of Good Feeling. I was going to celebrate the hyphen in anti-divisive political terms.

            But right now -- I don't know about you, but right now, I hate political terms.

            I just want to wallow around in great hyphenated names.

            Emily Wax-Thibodeaux. (Nice touch, the sounded x and the silent one.)

            Lolita Chandler-Crumpley.

            Eric Feigl-Ding.

                                    And Now, Yet Another Fine Limerick Confronting

                                        Unblinkingly the Decline of Males Today

A wide-eyed fellow named James 

Has so many laudable aims

          He's unable to pull

          The trigger -- he's full

Of big pictures stuck in their frames.