Robinson Jeffers wrote a poem on this topic, about the fact that the man who invented the telephone was named Bell, and the men who brought us the airplane were named Wright (maker, doer) . He gave a few other instances, and I would like to quote his poem here, but I have him on my Kindle and I can’t bear to even skim some of his longer poems to find this one. (He’s a great American poet, too soon forgotten in my opinion, but I don’t want to re-encounter his epic about suicide by parturition. )
I meditated before about Gates for the man who opened up communications, Jobs for the man who transformed multiple industries, and of course, Trump: he who always comes out on top. Oh, and “Fauci” means jaws, or maw in Italian. I might even include Biden (bidin’) for our last placeholder president.
This morning, during my usual period of lingering in bed while I check out my fave sites, I read somewhere about the 20th century names. Churchill opposing the occultist Nazis, Stalin ( man of steel, but that’s intentional) , Roosevelt (field of roses) ushering in the peace, Eisenhower (iron hewer) orchestrating the final blow.
(Personally I think Truman is the greatest presidential name we’ve ever had. That “true man” who dared to dispatch the Enola Gay, who recognized Israel minutes after the King David Hotel incident….)
Are there others you would name (as they say in church)?
Is this proof that we’re living in a simulation and the programmers are getting bored?
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Fascinating rabbit hole that led me to things like Folke Bernadotte - Wikipedia – which just reinforced my previous opinion that states created by means of terrorism deserve no recognition.
Terrorism, (aka violence, aka war), is the only way to create or transform a nation. The U.S. was certainly midwifed in war and violence.
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I think US was founded in a different time. It might have been better even for Israel not to have been recognized based on the terrorist actions but based on nation building.
To return to the topic of last names, you can get 5% higher salary with the right name. Here’s a study about social mobility by analyzing last names in different countries.