An onion by any other name would smell as sweet…

So what’s in a name hey? Everyone has these peculiar little signature referral things we call names (you see even it has a name) so we can direct our thoughtful conversations, posing questions or our adroit remarks to the correct subject and so avoid confusion and possible bloodshed. Like when you’re at a bar and you cry, ‘Stacey, can I buy you a drink?’ Now had you not used Stacey, you would have effectively rung the open-bar bell and committed yourself to one hefty round, or even worse if you had gotten the name wrong and used, say Carly, you would have inadvertently hit on the uglier version of the two dolls propping up the bar! [couldnt get a picture of Stacey so got one of her mom]

So you get my point about the importance of names, and the even more importance of not confusing them. My IDOLS III insert last week got my mind on the habit of weird names being christened (burdened) upon the progeny of the people that reside in the interior of our beloved nation. I did some research scanning currie cup team sheets this weekend and was inundated with a whole host of ridiculous names but I ranked my top five for the sake of brevity:

5.) Windpomp Van Rooyen – the hefty 2nd row forward for the Wildeklawer Griquas rugby team. For those of you with strictly Anglo-descent, his Christian name translates into wind pump and refers to a windmill. I think there are parallels to be drawn here with Brooklyn Beckham, Paris Hilton (although unconfirmed) and Ali G and MeJulies kid, Kentucky. (short for ‘the-bogs-at-KFC-in-langley-village)

4.) Wildeklawer Griquas – Miami Heat, New England Patriots, Canterbury Crusaders, The Mighty Ducks are all great examples of how professionalism has contributed to the catchy names of world famous sporting franschises. Not to be outdone by overseas teams, the men from Kimberley found sponsorship and namesake from the highly respected multi-national onion retailers that holds up the economy of the region since diamonds disappeared…


3.) Kleinjan Tromp – The Lions 2nd row forward. (I see a trend) Again for you monoglots, it translates into Little John which was no doubt stolen from Robinhood’s large friendly club wielding sidekick. Needless to say it is a rather clever oxymoronic play on the fact that the guy is 1,92m and weighs the same as a twelve 10kg bags of wildeklawer onions, although in the native dialect it seems to lose to ‘oxy’ part.

2.) Os du Randt - Staying with the ox theme, we have the Springbok legend Os du Randt who has being propping up scrums since wildeklawer onions has been feeding the kleinjans and windpomps of the world. However I am using him as the foundations to lead us to our winner.

1.) Slagos du Randt – The Lions u21 flyhalf sports a name that is more bizarre than a Durban flea market. His Christian name is the respectable Clayton but his rugby nom de plume is ‘Slagos’. (slaughter ox?) His parents gave the guy a fairly decent name (and a friggan good right boot) but for some reason his mates call him this. So unless he murdered Os du Randt’s (no relationship apparently but I’m sceptical) daughter I can not for the life of me see why you would allow people to call you that…

Names are important but they seemingly becoming rather arbitrary when people are registering their kids under some weird ass references. I don’t care who uses my name, as long as they spell it right…