Comics / Cult Favorite

What’s in a Name? Doomsday!

By Philip Schweier
October 17, 2005 - 13:21

What’s in a name? Doomsday!

Well, for at least one kid I’m aware of.

Granted, doomsday might be pushing the bounds of believability, but this column title is actually stolen from an old Captain Marvel story I remember reading 30-odd years ago. It seems a gangster got tired suffering at the hands of the Big Red Cheese, punching out his henchman whenever he said the good Captain’s name. So the thugs’ busybody landlady started spreading the rumor that the name brought about catastrophe. Didn’t help when Freddy Freeman said it and got hit by lightning.

Anyhoo, what IS in a name? Well, first impressions, for one. Name a kid Loo Sing, and it’s assumed he’s Asian. Name a boy Cuthbert, and you can expect him to wear glasses and play the violin.

Loving parents want what’s best for their kids, to protect them anyway they can. So when I heard that Nicolas Cage had named his firstborn child after the Last Son of Krypton, I had to ask myself: “What planet is he from?”

Sure, he’s Hollywood, where being nutty and kooky is par for the course. Recently, celebrity parents have made the news by giving their children off-beat names. For some, it might be par for the course, like with manic comedians.

Nic Cage, not so nutty. He’s made a couple of comedy movies, and he has a reputation as a comic book collector, but that hardly qualifies him to go out on a limb as he did. Name a kid Kal-El, and you can pretty much expect people to shake their heads in pity, for so many reasons.

I will admit at one time I thought I might name my son Calvin Lawrence, so we could call him Cal L. But I realized Kal-El just doesn’t role off the tongue as easily as Jor-El, so maybe Jordan Lawrence would be better. Either way, the kid has a chance to not be ridiculed for his name.

If anyone should be ridiculed, it the parents who do things like this to their children. It would be one thing if the boy chose the name himself, but it’s the parents who make the decision. It’s the parent who have to accept the responsibility and bear the burden when the youngster comes crying home after the never-ending battles with the schoolyard bully.

Namesakes are a funny thing, and carry with them all sorts of baggage and expectations. A friend of mine was trying to come up with a name for his son at the time of the release of Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade. He and his wife thought about naming him Junior, or Henry, or even after the dog. In the end, they settled on Sean. Lucky kid.

It’s an unfortunate cliché that too many guys named in police reports for drunk driving and wife beating are named after dear old Dad’s favorite macho man, John Wayne. Don’t get me wrong – I’m a big fan of The Duke. I just wish people would stop doing his name a disservice by attaching it to whatever white trash offspring they happen to be pumping out that week.

Anyone can go through their local phone book and find people with famous names and assorted variations. It’s inevitable. I’m just disappointed that Nicolas Cage has done this to his child. Perhaps if the child had been a girl, he could’ve named her Kara and nobody would think much of it. Or he could have named him Luke.

But Kal-El. Nicolas Cage is so desperate to attach himself to the Man of Steel that he’s made this sad and dare I say cruel effort with his own son.

But fortunately, in the world of comics, things change quickly, and characters are revised to suit the tastes of the audience. Hollywood is no different. Leaf Phoenix changed his name to Joaquin, doing away with the hippie moniker his parents saddled him with.

So maybe when Kal-El Coppola Cage is old enough to change his name, he will do so faster than a speeding bullet.

To Billy Batson.

Praise and adulation? Scorn and ridicule? Email me at philip@comicbookbin.com

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12