These are a few of my favorite names

[this is satire]

Every now and then you read a name in the paper or hear a name on TV or the radio and you can’t help but smile. Some folks just have names that no fiction writer could ever make up. The hell with Joey Buttafucco — here are a few of my favorites.

• Jack Straw, British foreign secretary. His name reminds me of an old-time folksinger, or maybe a scrawny guy who hung out with Johnny Appleseed.

• Dick Lugar, distinguished Indiana senator. No pulp fiction writer could ever dream up a better name for a gun-toting, cigarette-smoking, streetwise private eye.

• Barack Obama, rising Democratic politico. Like Tutu, “Obama” is just fun to say. It’s really fun to say in a baritone, doo-wop style: “Barack Obama-lama-ding-dong.”

• Bishop Desmond Tutu, African cleric and international peacemaker. C’mon, who doesn’t like saying “Tutu”?

• Joy Fawcett, U.S. Women’s Olympic Soccer Team member. Her name has a strange, Zen-like meaning. With a slight spelling change, it’d be a great punk rock name.

• Rupert Boneham, America’s favorite Survivor. Like Madonna and Bono, Rupert is known universally by just his first name, which has to make Rupert Murdoch feel pretty lame. Also, to pronounce Rupert’s last name, you have to say “bone.”

• Wolf Blitzer, CNN news reporter. It’s a name that’s both funny and kind of scary at the same time. Sounds best using the “Hans and Franz” accent.

• Boris Badenov, 1960s cartoon bad guy. OK, I know that Boris is not a real person, but I didn’t realize until 30 years after watching the original show that his name is based on the central character in the Russian play/opera Boris Gudinov. That still blows my mind.