My name is Jonathan Clarke. I never liked it. Jonathan is a wimpy name. The kid from "Who's the Boss" was named Jonathan and he turned out gay. With a "Flock of Seagulls" hairdo. I think that proves my point.So I go by Jon. Even my wife calls me Jon. My mother calls me Jonathan and it sucks all the confidence right out of me. Point #2 against.
I've been Jon Clarke on this blog since the beginning. Thanks to that, I'm now the #1 Jon Clarke on Yahoo (#5 on Google). I thank Bryan Murphy for making me care about such a trivial thing.
I used to separate the two names. Jon when people call me on the phone but Jonathan when I had to write it down. You know what? Screw that. I don't want to see that name anymore. From now on, I'm using Jon all the time. On stage, in print, everywhere they don't ask me for my social security number. That's my decision and it is final. Thank you for listening.
Some people think my name is John Clarke. It's not but hopefully mentioning it will trip off a few search engines and send more people here.
4 comments:
Thank you for finally clarifying this! Every time I had ever addressed you in written correspondence (be it email or even in a blog posting), I always had to stop & think about how to address you - as "Jon" or "John" - and never quite knew which was correct.
Of course there were a lot of factors backing up each case, mind you. For instance when I first met you, I thought you were Jewish. (Don’t ask my why, but I did.) I've noticed that most Jews use the spelling "Jon" and seem to drop the "h". Not sure why, but it seems to be a prevalent trend.
Of course once I found out you had gone to Catholic school (an activity usually taken up by non-Jews) & had even contemplated becoming a priest, I immediately began adding an "h" in all written correspondence. (I had always assumed - probably incorrectly - the association of Christianity with the letter "h" came from spelling of "John the Baptist".)
Either way, I don't recall you ever correcting the situation no matter which moniker I had decided to address you by on a given day. This is very commendable and I appreciate it.
Thank you & may your Catholic God bless you,
Dan X.
congratulations jon!
doesn't it make you feel all warm and tingly inside?
This reminds me of 8th grade. My class had a new to the school teach, Ms. Montefusco. She was the first person who started calling me Bill rather than Billy. That's when I knew we were growing up.
It's also been held in myth that to name something is own it or hold dominion over it. Hence the Gaelic myths surrounding the idea of the "True Name" remaining hidden, lest one lose independence (of course I'm probably completely messing that up). This even appears in Genesis, when Adam names the animals, as a sign of dominion.
Oh, you'll always be Little Johnny to me. : P
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