Man, I remembered that episode wrong, but it looks like you’re right (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27oh-in%27_in_the_Wind). I had wrongly remembered that he found out it was just an initial, but people interpreted the “J.” as “Jay”.
This is what happens when I try to be clever. My Stan models are even worse….
I followed the link. This is awesome! Is there a wikipedia page for every Simpsons episode? I’d love it if there were a wikipedia page for every one of my journal articles.
IIRC, using a middle initial could bring unwelcome visits from immigration in Canada. The, rather lame, explanation was that John Q. Smith was a more an American form. Possibly checking up on draft-dodgers in the old days?
On the Stan team page, I have become Robert L Grant, which, although it is in fact my name and helps in publications to avoid confusion with the drum n bass DJ or the science fiction writer, does sound excitingly exotic. I might keep it.
The Wikipedia page on John Q Public led me to “J. Random Hacker,” supposedly a common term for any ol’ programmer in a lot of programming texts.
There are lots of people for whom the middle initial is pretty much always used (Samuel L Jackson, Arthur C Clarke, etc.) so if we list all of the Harry S Trumans of the world we’ll be here for a long time. But fictional ones — Jesus H Christ, Roy G Biv, John Q Public — that’s a shorter list. Do we want just the ones that are Name-Initial-Name, or do you want Initial-Initial-Name too, like “I.B. Tripping” or “I. P. Freely”?
Jeb Bush is an actual recursive acronym. Jeb is short for “John Ellis Bush.” If he is elected, we should change the acronym “POTUS” to stand for “POTUS of the United States!”
I wanted to call our second son Noam O. Aryeh Morris, but his mother said that this would be too geeky, and insisted that the O was left out. Now that he’s 8, and a proto-geek, he’s upset that I lost the argument, and insists that once he turns 18, he’s going to put the O back in.
John F. Kennedy,
Michael J. Fox,
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Philip K. Dick,
Cecil B. DeMille,
George W. Bush,
George C. Scott,
William F. Buckley,
John D. Rockefeller,
Johnny B. Goode,
James Q. Wilson
Some of us, seeing a post that seems to be asking a stupidly obvious question, suspect we must be missing something and read the comments to find out what that is. Others just provide the stupid answers.
One could also argue for James T Kirk. He’s fictional, like Roy G Biv, and a good argument can be made that “T” is made up. The commonly known “Tiberius” was never mentioned in the original series, and at one point, he is referred to as “James *R* Kirk”. See http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/9815/who-is-james-r-kirk
At the risk of steering the conversation toward bashing of social psychology, a study claims that use of middle initials makes you appear smarter. A summary (with a link to the original journal article) is at
This seems similar to old research (60 years old, at least) which showed people wearing glasses were regarded as about 10 IQ points smarter. But the effect disappeared when short videos were used (so the respondents could be heard).
1) The late mathematician R. H. Bing — the R and H didn’t stand for anything. But I believe hearing that his father was Rupert Henry. There’s also a story that on some form his names were listed as R.(only) H.(only) Bing, and it got transcribed as Ronly Honly Bing.
2). My brother-in-law has only the initial D. rather than a middle name. As I recall, once when my sister was admitted to a hospital, the intake person insisted that there be a middle name, not just an initial, for her husband, so to avoid hassle, she gave the first name starting with D that she thought of.
3) I often used my middle initial — because my last name is Smith, so using the middle initial can avoid some (but not all) instances of confusion with other Martha Smith’s.
Then there is the opposite. William Lyon Mackenzie King is always referred to with all his names, which come to think of it is the opposite of Sir John A. whose last name is often omitted.
I know of 2 other Andrew Gelmans. One lives in Chicago, and he came up to me after a talk I gave and said hi. The other lives in New Jersey, down the street from a poli sci prof who told me that she had a neighbor with my name.
All this reminds me of Herb Caen’s quip in the 1970s during Watergate, when there was a spate of names like G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt: “Never trust a man who parts his name on the side.”
If you are old enough to remember All In The Family (or maybe if you’ve seen re-runs) you might recall that Archie Bunker always used to refer to his favorite US president as Richard E Nixon. I guess you could call it a (deliberate) mistake but it certainly was fictitious!
Does Donald Trump have a fictitious middle initial by any chance?
Samuel L. Jackson
“L” stands for Leroy
http://mentalfloss.com/article/26920/quick-10-people-fake-middle-initials
David:
Too bad they forgot about Jesus and Roy, who are more famous than most or all of the people on that list.
Homer J. Simpson
He finds out in one episode that the J stands for Jay
It stands for Jay.
Doh!
Man, I remembered that episode wrong, but it looks like you’re right (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27oh-in%27_in_the_Wind). I had wrongly remembered that he found out it was just an initial, but people interpreted the “J.” as “Jay”.
This is what happens when I try to be clever. My Stan models are even worse….
Joe:
I followed the link. This is awesome! Is there a wikipedia page for every Simpsons episode? I’d love it if there were a wikipedia page for every one of my journal articles.
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Simpsons_Wiki
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Episodes
Off topic-ish, Futurama was criminally underrated: http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Futurama_Wiki
Bender: So, do you know what I’m gonna do before I do it?
“G-d”: Yes.
Bender: What if I do something different?
“G-d”: Then I don’t know that.
Bender: Cool! Cool! I bet a lot of people pray to you, huh?
“G-d”: Yes. But there are so many asking so much. After a while, you just sorta tune it out.
Bender: Y’know, I was God once.
“G-d”: Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.
IIRC, using a middle initial could bring unwelcome visits from immigration in Canada. The, rather lame, explanation was that John Q. Smith was a more an American form. Possibly checking up on draft-dodgers in the old days?
On the Stan team page, I have become Robert L Grant, which, although it is in fact my name and helps in publications to avoid confusion with the drum n bass DJ or the science fiction writer, does sound excitingly exotic. I might keep it.
Don’t forget Jack D Ripper in Doctor Strangelove.
Ulysses S. Grant
jrkrideau’s comment reminds me of John Q Public.
The Wikipedia page on John Q Public led me to “J. Random Hacker,” supposedly a common term for any ol’ programmer in a lot of programming texts.
There are lots of people for whom the middle initial is pretty much always used (Samuel L Jackson, Arthur C Clarke, etc.) so if we list all of the Harry S Trumans of the world we’ll be here for a long time. But fictional ones — Jesus H Christ, Roy G Biv, John Q Public — that’s a shorter list. Do we want just the ones that are Name-Initial-Name, or do you want Initial-Initial-Name too, like “I.B. Tripping” or “I. P. Freely”?
If we’re just discussing initials, and not placements, then L. Ron Hubbard comes to mind as well.
However, one initial is so passé. Besides John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, who else is consistently referred to by TWO initials?
B B King
W.E.B Du Bois? 3 initials and a surname prefix. Beat that!
To be precise, it’s THREE, as he is always called J.R.R.
H is for Harold.
Our father who art in heaven, Harold be thy name.
My three children, whose middle names are, in their entirety, B, T, and A.
How did you resist the urge to arrange it so their middle names would collectively spell something? Like “BAT”, I suppose?
the “G” stands for “Green”!
Benoit B. Mandelbrot is the opposite case (The B stands for “Benoit B. Mandelbrot”)
+1
Jeb Bush is an actual recursive acronym. Jeb is short for “John Ellis Bush.” If he is elected, we should change the acronym “POTUS” to stand for “POTUS of the United States!”
So Jeb Bush is like Job Bluth?
I wanted to call our second son Noam O. Aryeh Morris, but his mother said that this would be too geeky, and insisted that the O was left out. Now that he’s 8, and a proto-geek, he’s upset that I lost the argument, and insists that once he turns 18, he’s going to put the O back in.
John F. Kennedy,
Michael J. Fox,
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Philip K. Dick,
Cecil B. DeMille,
George W. Bush,
George C. Scott,
William F. Buckley,
John D. Rockefeller,
Johnny B. Goode,
James Q. Wilson
Some of us, seeing a post that seems to be asking a stupidly obvious question, suspect we must be missing something and read the comments to find out what that is. Others just provide the stupid answers.
David O Selznick
Benoit B. Mandelbrot
George S Patton
George C Scott
Booker T. Jones
Booker T Washington
Iain M. Banks
One could also argue for James T Kirk. He’s fictional, like Roy G Biv, and a good argument can be made that “T” is made up. The commonly known “Tiberius” was never mentioned in the original series, and at one point, he is referred to as “James *R* Kirk”. See http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/9815/who-is-james-r-kirk
Jose Ortega Y Gasset.
But what is it you are looking for?
(1,2,3. Are there any others? Yes, 4 and 5. But that is all.)
George E. P. Box?
At the risk of steering the conversation toward bashing of social psychology, a study claims that use of middle initials makes you appear smarter. A summary (with a link to the original journal article) is at
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/middle-initial.htm
I don’t believe the effect reported in the article (the statistics seem too good to be true), but the topic seems relevant to the current discussion.
This seems similar to old research (60 years old, at least) which showed people wearing glasses were regarded as about 10 IQ points smarter. But the effect disappeared when short videos were used (so the respondents could be heard).
In Truman’s case it was his mother in law who was a real piece of work.
I’m a minimalist:
Q https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_%28Star_Trek%29
M https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_%28James_Bond%29
1) The late mathematician R. H. Bing — the R and H didn’t stand for anything. But I believe hearing that his father was Rupert Henry. There’s also a story that on some form his names were listed as R.(only) H.(only) Bing, and it got transcribed as Ronly Honly Bing.
2). My brother-in-law has only the initial D. rather than a middle name. As I recall, once when my sister was admitted to a hospital, the intake person insisted that there be a middle name, not just an initial, for her husband, so to avoid hassle, she gave the first name starting with D that she thought of.
3) I often used my middle initial — because my last name is Smith, so using the middle initial can avoid some (but not all) instances of confusion with other Martha Smith’s.
Then there is the opposite. William Lyon Mackenzie King is always referred to with all his names, which come to think of it is the opposite of Sir John A. whose last name is often omitted.
Michael J. Lew
Homer J Simpson
When my name’s in a list of authors on a paper I include my middle initial; otherwise my citations get mixed up with those of a different C. Yanofsky.
I know of 2 other Andrew Gelmans. One lives in Chicago, and he came up to me after a talk I gave and said hi. The other lives in New Jersey, down the street from a poli sci prof who told me that she had a neighbor with my name.
All this reminds me of Herb Caen’s quip in the 1970s during Watergate, when there was a spate of names like G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt: “Never trust a man who parts his name on the side.”
Off topic:
Oh please, oh please, oh please comment on this Scott Adams post: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/126589300371/clown-genius
EB:
What’s really amazing is if you read the comments there. Ahhhh, the internet!
Andrew:
What’s really amazing is that Robert Cottrell at “The Browser” was convinced that was worth reading…
https://thebrowser.com (link to main website, not the link to Cottrell linking to the Adams post.)
Just clarifying to the internet: I do *not* regularly read the blog of Scott Adams. Do. Not.
Philip J. Fry
If you are old enough to remember All In The Family (or maybe if you’ve seen re-runs) you might recall that Archie Bunker always used to refer to his favorite US president as Richard E Nixon. I guess you could call it a (deliberate) mistake but it certainly was fictitious!
Does Donald Trump have a fictitious middle initial by any chance?