What's in a Name When Your Name is Perry?

Perry & the Sweater               ZZZZZZZZZ                      Great Caesar's Ghost!  

What’s in a name when your name is “Perry?”

After all these years I’m not really sure.

True, there's nothing terribly wrong with the name Perry, aside from the fact that the folks who bear it are few and far between. Yet I’ve always liked my name about as much as I like the smell of five day old fish.

How come?

As a kid in my 1950’s Philadelphia Jewish suburban world, I knew no other Perrys. I alone epitomized the name. And as its sole epitomizer, I was hardly doing it justice

I was not athletic. I was routinely picked last in gym class and then promptly placed on waivers. I was also painfully shy. Speaking up in class might as well have been speaking up to negotiate the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only time I raised my hand was when I had to go to the bathroom.

Nor was I popular. In Junior High School I was President  of the "Clapping Out Erasers Club." Later in High School I was voted "Most Likely to Be Home Watching the Wild Wild West on Prom Night." 

Thus my concept of “Perry” was someone with all the qualities I disliked in myself.  And the only other Perrys I knew were fictional or on TV. 

And lame.

Although he had his own catchphrase - "Great Caesar's Ghost!"- Daily Planet editor Perry White was the only principal character in the Superman legend never to get his own comic book.

As played by actor Raymond Burr, Perry Mason was one of the TV’s most boring characters, a burly middle aged barrister who wasn't funny, didn't duke it out with bad guys, and only hung with women if they were wrongly accused of  committing murder.

Then there was a laid back crooner with a personality like a carp whose greatest talent seemed to be the ability to mask his blandness with a closet full of red cardigan sweaters. His name was Perry Como. 

And let's not forget one of the murderers in the book and movie In Cold Blood. His name? Yep, Perry Smith.

Later as an adult I did briefly get to know another Perry. And I found myself baffled by something that any Tom, Dick, or Harry had been doing all their lives.

“Hello, Pouie,” I sputtered over the phone the first time I called “Other Perry.”

I found myself unable to ascribe to another human being the name I’d always felt saddled with, but which I’d also come to feel I owned.  For better or worse, not only did I epitomize the name, I had now become the:

"One True Perry!"

But then a curious thing happened.

Some people I'd meet began to tell me they actually liked my name:

"Perry! That's kind of unusual, and kind of cool!"

"Has a friendly sound to it, Perry does.  Names ending in "ry” always do."

"Not many people named Perry. Makes you special!"

There also began to appear a few Perrys more pleasing than the humble Perrys of the past. Despite our shared Perry personas, rocker Perry Farrell, actor Perry King, and designer Perry Ellis all  presented a better and more positive image to me in terms of talents, personality, and achievements than the Perrys of yore.

So maybe I'm not the "one true Perry" after all. Nor should I be limited by stale self-images of who a Perry ought to be.

So what's in a name?  

If it's your name, it's all about what you think of yourself. I'm trying to start thinking of Perry - my name and me - in a good way.  

I think Pouie would be pleased.

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More Palpably Pleasing Perrys