This Is The Name Of Your Mullet

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Me, I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

We're in chambers this week to clear the docket.

And with me is Brooklyn's own Judge John Hodgman.

Brooklyn and Brooklines,

and maybe even Brooklyn's own.

Judge John Hodgman had a wonderful sleep last night, ready to name some people, places, and things.

Emphasis on people.

This is a big responsibility, Jesse Thorne.

Naming is power.

Naming is very powerful.

And

that's why humans get to rename themselves

in case their names are wrong.

But today,

no one has more power than the court of Judge John Hodgman because people have brought things to be named.

And I'm not going to say, do whatever you like.

I'm going to tell you, this is going to be named this.

And that's going to be binding, Jesse Thorne.

Unless you're a human, in which case you can change your name.

Yeah.

Or the name of the thing or the backyard pub that you've built in Des Moines, Iowa.

We're going to name a lot of different things, Jesse.

Do you like your name, Jesse Thorne?

I do.

It's pretty cool.

I've always liked my name.

Yeah.

One time someone told me it sounded like a secret agent.

And since then, I've been completely on board.

It's a really cool, that is a really cool name for a character in a book.

Now, my name is John Hodgman.

It is also my dad's name.

I've never had any problem with it whatsoever.

The only problem I have with it is when people think that my name is Jonathan, which it is not.

And people think they're being cutesy by being extra formal with me.

And they go, well, Jonathan, you're wrong about something.

No, my name is John, and I'm always right.

But I did have to make a choice when

I became a person who had a thing published in a magazine what was my byline going to be was it going to be John Hodgman or John Kay Hodgman or John Kellogg Hodgman as that is my middle name or Jonathan Livingston Siegel

second time in a week that's come up isn't that weird it's very weird it's very weird very obscure what kind of a spiritual novel of the 60s is that what that was I think it was from the 70s I feel like it is one of those things from the 70s that was monumentally popular that I know only as a thing that people who were alive in the 70s talk about sometimes.

The other is the, I believe, television mini-series and possibly novel The Thornbirds.

Oh, sure, starring Richard Chamberlain.

There you go.

Jesse the Thornbirds Thorn.

It was a great time for television mini-series.

Especially if it was starring the incredibly handsome Richard Chamberlain.

I hope he's not a creep.

Seems like a charming guy.

Jonathan Livington Seagull, was that the name of of a seagull or a guy?

I think it was the name of a seagull because when I've seen it in thrift stores, there's a picture of a seagull on it.

All right.

John Kellogg Hodgman, probably,

I like that name a lot, and probably I should have used it as my official name in print.

But the thing is,

I got a little bit secretive.

I got a bit like Kellogg is like my secret middle name.

Feels weird for me to even say it right now out loud, letting all these people know.

We have, names have that kind of power.

Do you have a middle name, Jesse?

I have two middle names.

Here we go.

All of my names to me symbolize conflict between my parents, who were soon to divorce acrimoniously.

Yeah, two middle names will often suggest there's a lack of decision-making, maybe a not-seeing of eye-to-eye.

I think my birth was imminent, and my parents sat down with a Bible, despite not being

especially religious, and went through the names and picked some.

And I think my full name is Jesse Michael Gabriel Thorne.

And I know that once my father alluded to the fact that my godfather Michael had a pressure campaign to have his name included,

which, God bless him, he's a wonderful man, 82 years old, still an avid churchgoer and avid leather daddy who always wears his big black leather suspenders.

All right.

Even with his little gentle sort of

Flandersy rest of his outfit.

San Francisco's cool.

Hi, diddly-ho, fellow bears.

Exactly.

Sometimes he wears one of those, you know, those like

cab driver hats?

Not yellow, but like motorcycle guy hats with the little bill on them like Marlon Brando would wear?

Sure.

Sure.

My

church-loving godfather Michael absolutely wears one of those hats at age 80, whatever.

I guess when he's hoping to get picked up at a leather bar.

That's a terrific namesake.

And if I'm using the term namesake incorrectly there, don't write me a letter.

I'll figure it out eventually.

Is Michael the namesake of Jesse or Jesse the namesake of Michael?

It doesn't matter.

Look it up.

Don't correct me.

You know,

even though your names maybe remind you of certain conflicts in your past, in your familial past, when I hear Michael and Gabriel, I'm like, that makes sense to me that Jesse's got not one, but two little angels inside of him.

Kellogg, my, you know, look, my lineage goes back indirectly to a

health food quack who invented cornflakes.

And Benoni Kellogg, who was a traveling minister in New England.

I actually, and now a terrible company, terrible anti-labor company, but

I do not actually have a direct link to the Kellogg Cereal Corporation.

I am not the heir to a Battle Creek, Michigan fortune, as far as I know.

But I wish I, maybe I wish I put my name, if I were like John Kellogg Hodgman, that people would remember that.

Like John Hodgman, you get the ah and the ah in there, and it's a little bit, it's like it's hard to say Judge John Hodgman.

No one can ever say John Hodgga.

John Hodgeman is where I get most, that's what I get most.

John Kellogg Hodgman would be a great name for the New York Times magazine or for

a literary review.

I think it might be a little bit tougher of a sell in the world of podcasting with Re

sounding a bit big for its britches.

Seriously?

I think

you might sound a little fancy.

That's a lot of shade to throw at duning it with Timite Chalamé, which is the podcast that Timité Chalame is recording about the making of Dune 2, which is definitely spelled D2NE, the letter 2.

Dune 2.

Anyway, let's name some stuff.

Here's a case from Nick in Chicago.

My wife, Katrina, and I have an inflatable dinosaur named T.

Reginald, a.k.a.

T.

Reg.

For my birthday, she gave me an inflatable triceratops.

I named him Buddy.

It was a name I always had in mind if I ever got an inflatable Triceratops.

Sometimes long shots pan out.

Katrina hates the name Buddy and insists his name should be T-Tops.

Who's right?

Wow.

Well, I know who's right.

But first of all,

we need to get Nick and Katrina and T.

Reg.

and the soon-to-be-named Triceratops onto a live show in Chicago sometime soon.

Like, we need to go to Chicago to do a show just to have them on stage.

In the meantime, I'm going to name this Triceratops.

Now, Jesse, here, I have two questions for you.

Listen to them both.

First,

do you have a feeling about this one?

And before you express your feeling, does it make a difference that according to Nick, the Triceratops not only was a birthday gift to him, but that he is the designated dinosaur inflator in the family?

Oh, wow.

And also,

Katrina named T-Reg

herself, and she had T.

Reg long before they had met.

So that's

a predating, predating their relationship.

Those are all the facts.

So what do you think?

I think this inflatable triceratops is essentially the bowling ball that

Homer gave to Marge that had Homer inscribed on it.

Go on.

I think Katrina is really trying to essentially give herself an inflatable triceratops

and force upon Nick the name that she prefers.

I think T-Tops is a great name.

I say they should use it for their 1987 Camaro.

But I also think Buddy is a great name, as I do all the classic dog names.

I took a lot of airplanes last week.

We went on a little family trip, and I'll tell you something that I'm not a fan of.

Dad's in their late 30s wearing performance shirts and pants, shorts, steering their male-appearing children to the airplane bathroom while constantly referring to them as buddy.

Don't care for that.

Don't care for that.

Very complicated scenario, but sure.

Oh, it's maybe it's complicated, but it sure is prevalent when you are flying on airplanes in America during a school vacation week.

A lot of kids wearing sports-themed garb garb in the age, uh, you know, like

9 to 11 being referred to by their dads as buddy.

Come on, buddy, let's go over here, buddy.

Don't care for it.

Call your kid buddy.

Condescending.

Don't care for it.

I don't know.

I just got on my nerves.

That's all I'm going to say.

Naming is powerful.

Any dad in a performance top is a problem to me.

Yeah, there's a lot of performance wear.

You know when you should wear a performance top, John, in my opinion?

No.

When performance is required.

Mm-hmm.

If you're in a foot race, for example.

Sure.

Wear a performance top.

And I get it.

Like your son, if it's in this case, your son is your buddy.

I get it.

Your pals.

Pal is better.

Buddy is just so,

I don't know.

Just too sporty for me.

I mostly don't like school personnel referring to children as kiddos.

Don't care for it either.

Like as a group, like the kiddos are doing this, the kiddos are doing that.

Well, this kiddo is blah blah blah it gives me the creeps

it's it's creepy it's a it's one of those terms of quote-unquote affection that seem to actually be conveying contempt yeah i mean just say kids or children or students all those are normal words call a thing what it is yeah it's not not your not your buddy you guys aren't buddies Your child isn't your buddy.

I mean, you should be friends with your child, I suppose.

It's not your drinking buddy.

What about this Triceratops, though?

Oh, right.

Anyway, the point is I hate the name buddy.

Yeah.

Okay.

Hate it.

Hate it.

Hate the name buddy.

Sorry, Nick.

And I love T-Tops.

And though I am wary sometimes of matchy-matchy names when it comes to kids in a family, matchy-matchy names when it comes to inflatable dinosaurs in a family feels appropriate.

I think T-Reg and T-Tops

are two great T-names that go great together.

Katrina's absolutely right.

T-Tops is a better name.

But I'll tell you what, buddy.

I'm talking to you, buddy, Nick.

Nick is my buddy.

It's his birthday, Triceratops.

He is the primary inflator.

And he gets to name the Triceratops what he wants.

So it's Buddy.

Sorry about that, Katrina.

Here's something from Corey in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Yeah.

Our daughter's name is Aurora.

When brainstorming names for our son, I wanted to put North Star on the list.

My wife, Pam, said no.

Please rule, I can at least put Northstar on the list.

Jesse, do you understand the significance of this?

North Star and Aurora?

Yeah.

So Aurora is

a celestial phenomenon

with the lights in the sky.

And then North Star is a family of high-performance engines produced by General Motors between 1993 and 2011.

I didn't think that you were going to get it, but wow, yeah.

Also, it happens to be the case

that Aurora and Northstar are both members of the Marvel Comics Canadian superhero group Alpha Flight.

Oh, wow.

Well, they should name their child Sasquatch.

They live in Saskatchewan after all.

But

they can't just name their child Sasquatch.

Now, you know, my brain is going for the

Walter Lankowski.

That's the alter ego name of Sasquatch.

He's the one who turns into Sasquatch.

Don't at me if I'm wrong.

I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Walter Lankowski.

Is that right?

I think I'm right.

Sasquatch.

Other members, of course, were Guardian, Sasquatch, Marina, Northstar, Aurora, Snowbird, Shaman, and Puck, my favorite.

He was named after a hockey puck, literally.

A little person who's incredibly athletic and acrobatic and a great brawler and sort of Hemingway-esque

life adventurer who is dressed up as a hockey puck.

But Northstar and Aurora are brother and sister, and Northstar is the first openly gay character in Marvel Comics.

And those are the two interesting things about those characters.

Otherwise, they are Dullesville.

Duller than Regina.

All right, I said it.

I said it, Saskatchewan.

Duller than, I've been to Regina, I have a right to say.

It's kind of a dull town.

You know, the food festival that happens in Regina recently renamed itself.

Did you know that, Jesse?

I looked it up.

It's now called Taste of Saskatchewan.

Oh, I'd like to have a bite of that great province.

Used to be called Taste of Something Else.

Had a different name.

Regina's Food Festival.

Used to be called a Taste of something else.

But anyway, I'm just excited about all the possibilities for Alpha Flight names.

Right now, I'm leaning towards Manbot.

Box.

Box is a great name.

Box, honestly.

One of the characters is just named Box.

One of the characters is just named Box.

Chris Claremont and John Byrne created these characters together originally in X-Men, but John Byrne really fleshed them out when he created the Alpha Flight comic in 1983.

John, if you're wondering, Groundhog quit after the battle with Eggheads Emissaries of Evil.

The EOEs?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You see a lot of stuff in Alpha Flight.

You can't keep.

That's not, that's not a job for a long time.

You know what I mean?

It's not a long-term job.

It takes a toll on you.

Love Alpha Flight.

I love North Star.

I love Aurora.

I love your desire to put North Star on the list.

And it can be on the list, Corey,

but it cannot be your child's name.

Too matchy matchy.

Too matchy-matchy.

You can try to sneak in Jean-Paul, which is Northstar's actual name, or Walter Langowski, or Eugene Judd, which was the name of Puck.

Puck's the best character in all of Alpha Light.

Bar None.

Everyone knows it.

You can't name your child North Star.

You can put it on the list.

It will not be approved.

No matter what your child's name is, their nickname should be Major Maple Leaf.

I don't think that was ever his

Guardian's name.

Guardian was known as Vindicator James

Hudson McDonald.

Never mind.

Doesn't matter.

Died in New Avengers, Volume 1, Number 16.

Hey, get off the Wikipedia.

Get back on script.

I'll never get off the Wikipedia for Alpha Flight.

We're going to take a quick break to hear from this week's partners and for me to find more funny names in this Wikipedia entry.

We'll be back with more cases to clear from the docket on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm doing mine off the dome, and you're on Wikipedia.

That's not fair.

You're listening to Judge John Hodgman.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

Of course, the Judge John Hodgman podcast, always brought to you by you, the members of maximumfun.org.

Thanks to everybody who's gone to maximumfun.org/slash join.

And you can join them by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by Made Made In.

Let me ask you a question.

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It's true.

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But made in isn't just for professional chefs.

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And even some of your favorite celebratory dishes can be amplified with made-in cookware.

It's the stuff that professional chefs use, but because it is sold directly to you, it's a lot more affordable than some of the other high-end brands.

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And I know that she can, you know she can heat that thing up hot if she wants to use it hot uh she can use it to braise if she wants to use it to braise um

it's an immensely useful piece of kitchen toolery and and it will last a long time and and whether it's uh uh griddles or pots and pans or knives or glassware or tableware i mean you know jesse i'm sad to be leaving maine soon but i am very very happy to be coming back to my beloved made-in entree bowls.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Beta Ray Bill, honorary member of Omega Flight from Omega Flight No.

1, 2008.

Okay, that's a technicality, but that's from the Thor books.

I'm up here coming up with Diamond Lil

out of my brain.

Wild Child.

And I think that's it.

I think that's all I got.

Smart Alec, A-L-E-C?

Yeah, Smart Alec was really smart.

Goblin with a Y?

I think that they were the original Omega Flight.

They were the the bad ones.

And then the backup team was Beta Flight.

That's where Box was.

Box was a person who used a wheelchair and was an incredible inventor and he created a giant strong robot that he could put his mind into mentally.

You know what his last name was?

Box, B-O-C-H-S.

Oh,

I see.

All off the dome.

I don't think there is a character named the Dome, though.

There should be.

That's quite a flex.

Flex Flex alter ego of Adrian Corbo, who was depowered on M-Day.

I always sit here making fun of you reading the San Francisco Giants Wikipedia page.

Because I respect you.

I don't need to read it.

Here's a case from Nathan.

I like the band Wrinkle Neck Mules.

My partner, Leah, dislikes them because of their name.

Please rule, it's fine for Leah to dislike wrinkle neck mules on the merit of their music, but she can't dislike wrinkle neck mules on the basis of their name.

Please stop saying wrinkle neck.

It was bad enough that it's wrinkled neck mules in my head.

Hearing Jesse Thorne say it three times felt like a weird curse.

Yeah.

If there had been a mirror here, I would have brought wrinkle neck mules to life.

I'm also beginning to appreciate that just, you know,

you have one of the greatest voices

in all media, but you do say mule as though it has two syllables in it.

I just noticed that for the first time.

Muel almost.

What would you rather I say mules?

I just mean to say there's no way to make this band sound good unless

they sound good.

Now, I am grossed out by the name of this.

I think I don't like thinking about necks.

I don't like thinking,

I don't know, know, it's a very, it's a touchy subject, particularly people touching my neck don't like it.

As someone who probably has a wrinkled neck in his future, I don't care for that.

I'm fine with mules.

Not so thrilled about muels, but fine with mules.

Put them all together.

You got one band that I do not want to listen to, but I'm going to take a listen to them now.

I did a little bit of Wikipedia searching, so I do know they're not a particularly controversial band.

Wrinkled Neck Mules, according to this, it's an American band from Richmond, Virginia.

Their last record was in 2015.

And if, uh, what's Nathan, if you're a member of Wrinkledneck Mules, and this is a long trick to try to buzz market your band,

your folk rock, indie rock, Roots Rock, Bluegrass Band, it worked.

All right, I'm going to listen to one Wrinkled Neck Mules song now: Wrinkled Neck Mules.

Should I listen to Catfish,

Okeeechobe, or Central Daylight Time?

Jesse, it's your call.

Do they have a song called On the Nose?

Wow.

Wow.

Wowie.

Your choices again are Catfish,

Okeechobee, or Central Daylight Time.

Foxcar Tears.

I'm going to give you one more.

And this is the one we're going to listen to.

Mecklenburg County.

Let's go with Mecklenburg County.

It wasn't pretty when you said hell

across the fields in your night gown

Cursing the doctor, curses up

right on that

I heard enough Here's what I'm gonna say about Wrinkle Neck Mules

They're fine, they're a good band.

I would say that I never would have sampled their music based on their name because it just sounds like a deformed mule.

Just sounds gross to me.

And I'm sorry, and I'm sorry.

And perhaps you're aware of this and perhaps there's a reason for it.

But you know, when you name your band, you kind of don't want to gross people out.

I order Nathan's partner, Leah, to listen to some wrinkled neck mules if Leah has not done so already.

So that Leah can form their own opinion about the quality of this music.

It is possible to not like wrinkled-neck mules on the basis of their music, but you must give them five minutes of your time in honor of your relationship with Nathan, who is obviously a fan.

And if they're not for you, that's fine.

And then you can just say, I don't like wrinkled-necked mules, and let that be the last time I ever say those words.

In part two of Jonathan Livington Seagull, Jonathan transcends into a reality, which he assumes is heaven, where all seagulls enjoy practicing incredible maneuvers and speeds, as he does.

I always feel like the reason I never picked up that book or looked into it any further was it just had the stink of the little prince on it.

You know what I mean?

It had a little of that little prince stink.

Like

popular philosophy,

self-actualization philosophy that

some people want really bananas for.

Never liked that little prince.

prince get a real planet get on a big planet

hey little prince get a real planet

hey get a little bigger prince

i don't have a problem with the prince's size it's fine he's little just get on a real planet here's a case from neil in st.

louis park minnesota I need help naming a one-year-old.

A one-year-old mullet.

Now look, I guarantee you that we are going to name some actual kids.

I made that promise at the top, and we will do that in Act 3.

But now we're talking about naming a mullet?

We're talking about a haircut, Jesse.

Tell me more.

My barber Benny has been caring for my mullet from its very conception.

At my last haircut, he asked me if I had named it yet.

I had never considered the possibility.

I think this mullet needs a cool and and badass name.

Benny adds, it should be gender neutral.

Judge and Bailiff Jesse, please name my mullet.

Now, Jesse Thorne, since you're the king of Wikipedia, you can certainly tell me the surprising fact that I read on Wikipedia today about the popularization of the name mullet for this particular hairstyle, short on top, business in the front, long on the back, party in the back.

I'll give you a hint.

According to Wikipedia, it was coined more recently than I would have thought.

Really?

Yeah.

Given the fact of the mullets being associated with so much 70s sports,

the term mullet, according to Wikipedia, was coined by none other than Kid Ad Rock, Mike D, and Adam Yauk, the Beastie Boys, in the 90s.

I remember mullet as a word and idea sweeping my high school circa 1996.

That's when the supposedly the beastie boys started calling that haircut a mullet.

But of course that haircut goes back way back.

And I did a little research into some of the top mullets because we're obviously going to name this mullet after some iconic mullet or mullet owner.

So, you know,

here are a couple of big ones.

David Bowie in the Ziggy Stardust phase, one of the top mullets.

Sure.

Joan Jett, incredible mullet, incredible person.

If you want something cool and badass, it could be worse than Snake Pliskin and Escape from New York.

Andre Agassia is probably the most

leonine mullet of all time.

Agassiz.

Oh, really?

I was just trying to, you want to do it again.

No.

Andrew Augusti.

Andy Gusty, the famous tennis player, right?

Yeah.

Canon Eos Rebels spokesman.

Yeah.

Beautiful mullet.

I'm not doing this off of Wikipedia.

I'm doing this off of the dumb.

I'm not looking at the pronunciation guide.

Who are some other sports mullets?

Any mullets on the San Francisco Giants?

Oh, the San Francisco Giants were nothing but mullets.

I would say my top giants mullet, maybe Rod Shooter Beck.

What I like about a baseball mullet is often I'm thinking of one from like 1988, 1990, 1992, when the mullet mullet was long past its cool phase.

And a baseball helmet, or I think hockey helmet famously, really emphasizes the mullet in a distinctive way.

But

I like, let's say, a sloppy guy who wears a mullet.

Like there were a lot of sloppy ball players, Rod Beck among them.

For a while late in his career, Rod Beck was in AAA.

And he just parked his camper outside the AAA stadium and lived there.

And famously, before a game, you could stop by Rod Beck's camper in the outfield parking lot and have a beer with him.

Wow.

Like he'd just toss you a beer.

So would you nominate Sloppy as a name for this mullet?

That's not a bad name.

I think when I was thinking about great mullets,

my brain, for some reason, and I don't know if it's the most, like I thought of

singular mullets.

Jose Canseco had a really singular mullet because he had very straight hair and it was a very weirdly severe mullet because of the straightness of his hair.

I think I would always prefer a singular mullet over a double mullet.

That's true.

Because a double mull

would be what?

Short on both sides, but long in the front and in the back.

But for some reason, my brain landed on the Minnesota Twins of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Great team.

Won a lot of games in those years with a great core of players, almost all of whom had mullets.

Yeah.

Dan Gladden, Rick Aguilera, Jeff Reardon, Frank Sweet Music Viola.

There was a whole, there's more too, but the one that I thought could be the namesake of a mullet was Kent Herbeck.

I think Herbeck, H-R-B-E-K.

Herbeck is a great name for a mullet.

It's gender neutral.

Apparently, there's a lot of commercials on Minnesota television for some sort of fishing supply store that he owns.

Speaking of fish,

a sports player, a basketball player who died very young, sadly, named Dwayne Shintzius, and I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly and I don't want to know, was famous for his mullet, which he named, he had a name for his mullet, which was the lobster.

And I'll add

one more mullet into contention,

which is Michael Bolton, New Haven's own Michael Bolton.

Do you know that Michael Bolton was rumored?

to have been an extra in David Lynch's film production of Dune in 1984 and was rumored to have auditioned to be the replacement vocalist for Black Sabbath.

Those things are not true.

But did you know that Michael Bolton actually was the babysitter of Paula Abdul?

True.

So, wow, I guess opposites really do attract.

That's mullet history.

So, the top mullet names we have so far are Ziggy, Jet, Snake, Drugasi, or whatever that tennis player's name is,

Bolton, Herbeck, Sloppy, and MC Scatcat

in the interest of racial diversity I'm going to throw in neon Deion Sanders and I think neon or prime time could be

prime time

yeah

that just went to the top of the list I'm going to make a judgment here these are all great mullet names And I'll tell you what,

what I think you should do, Neil, is make a note of all of them.

And

in a year or so, shave your head, grow a new mullet, give it a new name, work your way through the list.

Snake, Jet,

Ziggy, Herbeck, Sloppy, Prime Time.

You think that the mullet should be paired back seasonally like a bulb.

Yes, indeed.

You can do one double mullet, call it the Kenseik.

And then this mullet, though, I'm going to suggest this name i'm not going to suggest it i'm going to order it the name i'm offering you is squallow it's short for squalomugil nasutus

which is the latin name for the fish known as the shark mullet aka the sharp-nosed mullet aka the popeye mullet aka the skipjack mullet.

All of those are good.

Shark, sharp-nose, popeye, skipjack, squallow.

Squallow, the shark mullet, is a fish found in Australia, New Guinea.

It feeds on algae and insects taken from the surface.

From the surface, you say?

Sure.

This fish can breathe air.

That's right.

This is an air-breathing fish that sometimes moves across land by wriggling.

I don't think it gets cooler or more badass than Squallow, the air-breathing fish.

All great mullet names, but that's the name of your mullet.

Live it up.

Long live Squallow until replaced by Primetime.

You know what?

I'll agree with Squallow Primetime as a first and last name, too.

That's also fun.

In fact, that's even better.

Squallow Primetime is the name of your mullet meal.

Have fun with it.

In part three, Jonathan has now amassed a small group of outcasts as flying students with Fletcher, the star pupil, and tells them that, quote, each of us is, in truth, an unlimited idea of freedom.

In truth.

I don't even know why The Little Prince bugs me so much.

I don't even think I ever read it.

All I know is about this French middle-aged pilot having a midlife crisis, symbolized by his crashing in a desert, and then getting

a new life philosophy from a little kid wearing a military uniform.

None of this is okay.

This is all creepy.

It's a super weird and oddly boring book.

And then Bob Fossey shows up as a snake.

No thanks.

That's the first good part of it I've heard.

Let's take a quick break.

When we come back, it's finally happening.

We're naming some babies.

You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother, me for 15 years.

And

maybe you stopped listening for a while.

Maybe you never listened.

And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years.

I know where this has ended up.

But no.

No, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back and goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Long.

I'm Caroline Roper.

And on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

It's the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

With me, Judge John Hodgman, the king of the short story.

Yeah, you got me dead to rights there, Jesse Thorne.

That's me, John Hodgman, too, published short stories in this world.

Ghosting in the Paris Review, number 141, and Villanova in One Story magazine, number one.

And otherwise,

whatever it is that I do, I've been doing it.

And I got my start by doing it for McSweeneys.net, the website associated with the literary and humor journal McSweeney's.

I hosted many an event for them back in the 90s and throughout the 2000s.

And I'm coming back with my old friends to Symphony Space for our 25th anniversary extravaganza.

That's not just a regular Vaganza, it's an extra Vaganza celebrating McSweeney's 25th anniversary and presented by Selected Shorts, the wonderful public radio program that presents selected short stories.

Now, look, we're coming to Symphony Space on May the 10th.

I'll be hosting our musical guest is Stephen Merritt from the Magnetic Fields.

You can watch in person or you can watch live streaming.

It's your choice.

Just Google Symphony Space, John Hodgman, McSweeney's, you know what to do.

They're great cheap tickets for people who are not yet 30.

So get over to symphonyspace.org and check out some interesting stuff there.

They have a lot of wonderful in-person programming and lots of live streaming programming, including my hosting of the McSweeney's 25th anniversary extra Vaganza.

And if you're in person, come see me after the show.

Jesse, what do you have going on?

I also have something high class going on, which is my friend Jordan Morris and I have created a short-run podcast called Stash Rules Everything Around Me.

It's a recap podcast of Burt Reynolds movies.

I've been meaning to compliment you on this thing that's been giving me so much fun and pleasure.

I mean, I remember you telling me about it way back when we were on tour earlier this year, and you just told me the title and I fell down with happiness.

This is the greatest.

Stash rules everything around me.

A recap podcast of the films of Burt Reynolds.

Tell me more.

Episode one, which covers Smokey and the Bandit and features Adam Pranica of Greatest Generation and Greatest Trek, is in the regular Jordan Jesse Go feed.

So anyone can listen to that, and I would encourage that people do.

And then episodes two through six, plus some bonus stuff, plus some upcoming episodes that we have promised based on the success of Jordan Jesse Go and the Max Fun Drive are all in the Maximum Fun members feed.

So go listen to those.

Probably my favorite is the episode for Smokey and the Bandit 2, which features your friend and mine, best-selling author and acclaimed novelist, Elizabeth Gilbert.

Sure, she loves Burt Reynolds.

Of course.

She sent me a screen cap of a text message thread with her friend that said, like, we'll explain later.

Can I come over Sunday night to watch Smokey and the Bandit 2 with your family?

And then her friend texted her back, no explanation necessary.

Yes.

Absolutely not.

There is no, you need no explanation.

to go over.

And if you haven't, if you didn't manage to become a member during the Max Fun drive, just go over there, maximumfund.org slash join and unlock all that bonus content, including the prisoner TV show recap podcast I did with Elliot Kalen called Be Potting You, including our upcoming Shooting the Breeze cheese podcast,

including the State Mottoes podcast I'm doing with Janet Varney.

And of course, Richard Kind.

You missed him at Symphony Space.

Don't miss him now.

Go listen to Kinding Them with Kindness, a special members-only episode of Judge John Hodgman that everyone is enjoying a lot.

And obviously, if you're already a member, thank you very much.

Let's get back to the show.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Here is a case from David in Irvington, New York.

My wife and I are having a child this week, and we do not agree on the name.

My wife would like another Greek name to match our daughter Andromache

and our dog, Sparta.

She likes the name Calliope.

I find our previous names to be a bit much.

I would prefer a name that's simple, but still has Greek origins, like Chloe.

Who's right?

Well,

yeah,

Andromache is a big, that's a big name for a kid.

Andromache in the Iliad is the wife of Hector of Troy, who falls into grave lamentation when Hector is killed by Achilles outside the walls of Troy.

But there is another version of Andromache.

in myth and history and lore of ancient Greece, which is one of the queens of the Amazons.

Andromache, literally meaning man-battler, which is an incredible name.

I don't know which Andromache you were going for when David, or let's be fair, David's wife, an whole human being in her own right, named this child Andromache.

But now David's wife is leaning into Calliope,

who of course

is a muse.

One of the top muses, known as the chief muse of all the muses.

You got Calliope, muse of epic poetry, Cleo of history.

Euterpe,

flutes and music.

One very big category, one very narrow category, flutes and music.

Thalia, like the Thalia Theater in Chicago, where we've performed before.

Maybe we're going to see T.

Reg and Buddy there sometime in Chicago when we go on tour next.

Malpalmini,

muse of tragedy.

Terpuscuri, dance, obviously, or terpiscore.

Erato, love poetry and lyric poetry and favorite of the New York Times crossword, always showing up in there.

Erato,

Polyhymnia, muse of hymns and sacred poetry.

Polyhymnia would be an incredible name for a child.

And Urania, also a wonderful name.

I don't like names that are too matchy-matchy, so I think that

the fact that Andromache comes from,

you know, from martial myth, the Iliad, and Calliope comes from

artistic myth, that's not too matchy, even though they both are big, big, big Greek names.

Chloe derives from the Greek word basically for fertility.

So I think that's kind of putting Chloe in a box there.

Nothing against all the Chloe's in the world, and there are a lot of them.

I kind of feel like if you're leaning into Andromache, naming your child Chloe, you might as well name your child Emily.

A lot of these people are out there named Chloe and Emily.

I don't think that that works, David.

I think if you've already gone to Andromache, you might as well go hard into the next one.

Now,

I'm going to offer you this.

Penthesilea.

Penthesilea.

Because this weaves together the two traditions.

Penthesilea was also a queen of the Amazons, a warrior.

who also showed up at the Battle of Troy.

And

after Achilles killed Hector, making Andromache the wife, and whole human being in her own right, sad, and arguably making Andromache the Amazon not too happy either, Penthesilea fought Achilles almost to death.

Well, to her death, unfortunately.

Like, Achilles, the greatest warrior in the battle, was almost destroyed by Penthesilea.

Tragically, she was killed, but during the fighting, they fell in love.

Wild stuff happened at the Battle of Troy.

I mean, you could go with something more Trojan, like Helen, I suppose.

I got to give a shout out to Benjamin Schott, the British writer who created Schott's Miscellany, a very, very important book in my life in the early 2000s, in which he coined the term Millihelen.

A Millihelen, Jesse, according to Ben Schott, is the

amount of beauty required to sail a single ship.

Valerie Moffat really enjoyed that one.

Milla Helen.

I'm offering you Penthesilea.

You could do Penny.

You could do Leia.

I don't know what nickname you're doing for Andromache, but since all these names have a lot of complicated and sometimes problematic history behind them, maybe there's something I don't know.

And obviously your wife named your daughter Andromache.

So it probably sounds like your wife has a pretty big, pretty good classical education.

Probably she knows what she was doing.

So I'm going to leave it in her hands.

If she likes Calliope, there you go.

Calliope.

That's a great name.

Andromache and Calliope.

Those two go together.

I love it.

Penthesale, I love, but Calliope, go for it.

Callie, Lope,

maybe no nickname at all.

And just think about it.

Just think about how great it's going to be to introduce your family as you're walking your dog through the park and say, these are our daughters, Andromache and Calliope, and this is Sparta.

And then you kick the person you meet into a hole.

That's how your family does it.

I love it.

But in the meantime, congratulations.

I hope everything, if you have not already, welcomed Calliope into this world.

I hope that everything has gone as smoothly as possible and that everyone is happy and healthy

and that Calliope enjoys her name.

Here's something from Brian in Washington, D.C.

My wife and I are expecting our second son in August.

We agree that his name should start with the letter D.

Her leading contender is Daniel, which I think is a fine name.

It's not exciting.

I like Damien.

My wife dismisses this name because of its association with the 1976 horror film The Omen.

I say that movie's nearly 50 years old.

Help us name our child.

Well, you're doing a little short shrift there to the to the 2006 remake of The Omen, starring Lee Schreiber and Julia Stiles.

Guess when that movie came out, Jesse Thorne.

I gave you the year already.

2006, did you say?

Yeah.

What month and day of the month do you think that came out?

I'm going to say October 31st, 2006.

Fair guess.

Remember, this is a story about the son of the devil.

December 25th.

June 6th.

Oh, wow.

June 6th, 66th.

66th.

Got it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was one of those movies that are like, I guess we have to do this.

I guess we have to make a remake of The Yeoman.

It's going to be 666.

It's like when they were like, I guess we have to make a movie of 1984 to bring out 1984, even though there's no reason for a movie that depressing and authentic to the novel needs to exist.

Anyway,

Damien.

It's interesting, you know, because I wonder how much the association of the name Damien with the Antichrist still exists.

Indeed, that movie is 50 years old.

It's fine.

It's a fine movie.

It's not great.

It's fine.

Made a couple of sequels.

They tried to reboot it as a TV show a couple years ago.

I don't know how much has faded into memory.

I do know that looking at lists of people named Damien, there are a lot of them, but not many of them are American.

Very popular name in Ireland and Australia and other non-USA English-speaking countries.

So maybe there is still an association of

evil with Damien.

Never forget, Damien is also the name of the tortured assistant exorcist in The Exorcist.

but no damian damien is still a pretty strong flavor so do we name this kid damien or not what do you think jesse thorne i mean when i heard a d-name the first name i thought of was drew down

the san francisco rapper who i only recently learned is bootsy collins son whoa

wow that's a lineage speaking of lineage Before you can all stop sending me your emails right now, because yes, I did make the connection.

The last name of Damien in the Omen.

Jesse, you know what the last name of Damien in the Omen is?

Herbeck.

Thorne.

Really?

Yeah.

You ever check your own scalp for a tattooed 666?

Could be you.

Yeah, he's feeling around.

They need one of those little hand mirrors.

I'm going to give you two choices for what to name this child.

Either you lean into it and name this child

Damien Amityville, Linda Blair, Adrian Markado, Anton LeVay, BL's above, Bailiff, Jesse Thorne.

Or just name the kid Damon after my friend Damon, my oldest friend.

I met him when I was three years old.

Really good guy, listener to this podcast, a really terrific person, a really good friend, and

be associate and a name that doesn't get enough play, I feel like.

Damon isn't, people, not enough people are named Damon right now.

So there you go.

I wish you only the best, Brian, with your son Damon.

Damon, I hope that your son, Damon, does not end up being the son of Lucifer.

Hey, I got a couple of a little lightning round before we go, because Jesse, because we did get quite a few naming cases, and I want to settle these up before we go.

Rosie, I'm sorry, but the root cellar is a better name for your backyard pub in Des Moines, Iowa.

It's better than your suggestion, the quarry.

Sorry, the root cellar is a cool name.

The quarry.

I feel like there's too many of those.

Holly, you should not rename Susie your adopted Bernadoodle.

Your human aunt, aunt Susie will just have to deal with it.

That's fine.

Caitlin, as much as I like Kevin for a cat, I like all human names for all pets.

Do not rename your cat.

Kitty Boy is already a good name.

Kitty Boy is a good name.

And as I point out, naming is powerful.

That's why humans can rename themselves.

But for animals, renaming is just confusing.

Lindsay, you cannot name your friend Molly's next child.

You cannot name that child Jack or John.

Even if you did eerily predict your best friend's first pregnancy, Jack and John are both names that are tired out.

And also, you are not that person's parent.

That is why they did not allow you to name their first child with your suggested name, Remy Squash Pasta.

Even though that came to you in a dream.

Lindsay, you're not magical and you're not this child's parent.

Similarly, Colin,

your young children are not allowed to name your sister's baby.

It is not their place to name their infant cousin.

And oat milk is not a good name for a baby.

Sorry, Colin.

Your kids are obviously very imaginative, but that's like me naming my imaginary friend Windowsill, because I didn't have an imaginary friend.

And Damon did, and he asked me, what's the name of your imaginary friend?

And I just looked around and the first thing I saw, Windowsill.

No.

This is serious, everyone.

Namings is serious.

Be wary of joke names.

Frasier is a great middle name for Ben and Sarah's daughter Miriam.

It's better than naming her Miriam Webster.

It's a nice chuckle for now, but that's something that Miriam has to live with for the rest of their life until they decide to change it.

Miriam Frazier is better, and that's Frazier with a Z, not like the TV show.

And I have to say this,

this family, Miriam Frazier's family, has one of the very best last names of all time.

Do you know what it is, Jesse Thorne?

What's that?

Van Name.

Literally V-A-N Space Name?

One of the most incredible last names for a naming docket that we've ever had.

And we've only ever had one naming docket, and it's not going to get better than this.

I name this docket cleared.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman, the show created by Jesse Thorne and John Hodgman.

Our producer is Valerie Moffat.

We're on Instagram at judgejohnhodgman.

Follow us there for evidence and other photos from the show.

Well, I am going to forward to the JudgeJohn Hodgman Instagram a picture of Susie, the burner doodle, that will not be renamed because Aunt Susie doesn't like being sharing a name with a dog.

I'm going to send this photo to you right now, Jesse.

I'm going to put it in the chat.

It is called Big Suze.pdf.

Oh,

for context, Big Suze just got a haircut in this situation.

Big Suze looks like she just got her hair cut and set,

like in a in a beauty salon in Minnesota in 1987.

Holly, Big Suze's person is

a dog groomer, and Big Suze, aka Susie, is one of her clients of many years who can no longer, who has to be rehomed.

And so Holly is taking the dog in.

Oh, isn't that sweet?

And Holly also cuts Tom Bruno Brunansky's hair.

It's a little bit, Big Seuss has a little bit of a, possibly a mullet in there, too.

It's true.

Big Suze is primetime.

I think we have a name for this episode.

You can also check out the MaxFund subreddit, maximumfund.reddit.com.

There's always a lovely conversation about Judge Sean Hodgman episodes going on in the Max Fund subreddit.

and speaking of conversations uh i had a lot of replies to our grudge match episode including some incredible letters that i did not expect to get with news of the sex execs that boston band uh that lost out to till tuesday back in the battle of the bands in the 80s and grudges held there as well as verification of some grudge-worthy stuff that went down at robin hood camp you'll hear about it when we because you knew that you know that grudges don't don't die.

You'll hear about it in our next grudge match episode somewhere down the road where we'll also have Starly Kind looking into the mystery of the tattooed science teacher.

So if we've got any more grudges out there, get them to me at maximumfund.org slash JJ Ho, especially a grudge where both people are willing to be on air and we can do a like an old fight with a sibling that you want to bring up again or something like that.

Plus, I'm also going to ask for disputes about trains and ferries because I've been on both recently and I like them and we've had lots of disputes about other forms of transportation, automobile etiquette and airplane etiquette.

What about trains and ferries?

And we're talking about trolleys.

We're talking about Amtrak.

We're talking about cargo trains.

Streetcars.

Streetcars.

Streetcars named Desire.

Any dispute, conflict, or question arising out of travel upon a train or a ferry, I want to hear about it.

And I want to hear everything, everything, right, Jesse?

It doesn't matter if it's a big case or a little case.

It doesn't matter whether you think it's good or you think it's bad.

If you've got a dispute, send it to us, maximumfund.org/slash JJHO.

Our show is dependent upon you coming up with problems that you have with others in your life.

Maximumfund.org/slash JJHO.

We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

MaximumFund.org.

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