One of the NPC’s in my Nobilis game has three names. Why? Because he’s supposed to be a serial rapist, and serial-anythings always have three names.
Lileks explains:
Well, we know Eric Robert Rudolph?s guilty, don?t we? He has THREE NAMES. He was Eric Rudolph for years, but now he?s Eric Robert Rudolph. Say no more. That?s why I never thought Richard Jewell did the Atlanta bombing; he would have been described as Richard Jay Jewell, or Richard Harvey Jewell. People don?t get a middle name unless they?re a famous criminal. That?s the law. Ricky Ray Rector. Lee Harvey Oswald. James Earl Ray. Sirhan Sirhan Sirhan.
The nation is run by people with four names (William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, George Herbert Walker Bush, Harry Herbert Heever Hoover, etc.) The nation is entertained by people with one name – Cher, Sting, Madonna, Eminem, Rush. The people with three names are found guilty by jury members who have two names. What of the five-namers, you ask? Those are the puppet masters, my friend. The Masonic Illuminati. Somewhere now in Bavaria, Rheingelt Quincy Etienne Xavier Chernobog is shaking hands with John Jacob Zhinkleheimer Kim Tanaka. And that handshake took six years to learn.
John Jacob Zhinkleheimer Kim Tanaka… (Makes not in NPC-names memopad). Good stuff.
I suspect that the “three name” thing came after there were too many complaints when “mass serial rapist and killer Fred Smith was apprehended today” from all the other Fred Smiths out there. A lot fewer people are liable to get upset when it’s “mass serial rapist and killer Frederick Beauregard Smith” gets picked up.
Six years to learn the handshake? The power structure must fall! Hail Discordia!