Name Chains: Yet Another Fine Waste of Time


Hardly anything is a complete waste of time, but you're welcome to judge this diversion for yourself.

With no excuses for my long silence here, I now attempt to resuscitate this blog.

I've lately been linking names together by matching the last name of one person and the first name of another, to form chains. Here's an example:

Pearl Buck Henry James Joyce Kilmer

Each pair of consecutive names identifies a well-known person: Pearl Buck, Buck Henry, Henry James, James Joyce and Joyce Kilmer.

A chain could be continued indefinitely, but in this case "Kilmer" looks like a dead end (except for the scientist Kilmer McCully, but "McCully" seems even more likely to be a dead end). Maybe if we picked a different last name for "James" or "Joyce" we could continue much further. For example, the Irish novelist Joyce Cary might be a good choice. (Of course, one could use anyone's name, or even make up a name, but it seems more sporting to use names that can be readily verified as real.)

The left end is a little easier to extend, if we don't mind a few names that are less well known:

Herbert Samuel Daniel Pearl Buck Henry James Joyce Kilmer McCully

Some of the names may be unfamiliar; these can all be found at Wikipedia.

Here's another chain:

Elton John Emory Upton Sinclair Lewis Thomas Cole Porter Goss

"Goss" may be a dead end, but if we trim a few names off, we can make the following name loop:
Upside down at the bottom we now have the name Lewis Elton, a prominent British physicist. While his name may not be very familiar, it joins this loop nicely. Making such loops is a special challenge (though a few names such as "Sirhan Sirhan" can form loops all by themselves). Getting names arranged in a circle is a lot of bother (at least with the tools I've found), so I'll generally write them in a simple line of text with the same name at both ends (and it hardly matters where you break them):

Upton Sinclair Lewis Elton John Emory Upton

I'm not especially interested in setting rigid rules for constructing name chains and loops. I'd rather encourage people to play with the idea and create any variations they find interesting. Please let me know if you have some fun with it, or want to suggest some interesting or promising names to work with. I've got some further ideas myself that I may explore in subsequent entries.

Posted: Mon - May 25, 2009 at 12:06 PM       by email

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