Making A Name For Himself (Part 1)

Andy’s struggle for a stage name reminds me how significant one’s name can be. Take, for example, one of the big local stories here in the Bay Area. A former San Francisco Supervisor was sentenced for extorting $80,000 in cash from owners of tapioca-drink shops in exchange for promising to help the owners obtain city permits to operate legally. During a raid of the Supervisor’s property, agents found $10,000 of marked bills wrapped in foil and stored in the refrigerator.

The Supervisor’s name was Ed Jew. During the months preceding his sentencing, local media tripped delicately around his name to avoid reporting “Jew did this” and “Jew did that.” It led to the most repeated and awkward use of a first and last name—Ed Jew– since Bob Dole talked about Bob Dole. Undoubtedly “Jew,” sometimes spelled “Ju,” is a respectable Chinese name for this Asian-American man. But the Jewish Community cringed whenever it learned what this Jew had supposedly done.

The judge sentenced Ed Jew to more than five years for extortion and failure to change his name. Federal prosecutors had only asked for a 57-month sentence, but the U.S. District Judge added additional time for improper use of a refrigerator, and to make an example because the crime involved tapioca.

It’s possible Ed Jew, like Andy, considered going by a different name for professional reasons. The Chinese word “Ju” means chrysanthemum. Granted, “Ed Chrysanthemum” is a little flowery for a name, but a change to “Ed Chrystian” could have been politically more correct and more acceptable than “Ed Jew,” even if his identification with the Asian community was diminished.

By contrast, “Andy Ryan Gardner” is a professionally safe name that sounds soothing to the ear because of its trochaic meter. If you’ve forgotten your high school poetry, that’s when the first syllable of a two-syllable word is accented, as in “naked” and “handsome.”

Ed Jew’s name, other than being politically incorrect, is in spondee meter, where two consecutive syllables are both stressed, as in “big deal.” One can only wonder how much lesser Ed’s criminal sentence would’ve been had he changed his name to be, like Andy’s full name, in a pleasing trochaic meter. By merely adding two additional syllables, Ed could have been “Eddie Chrystian,” which sounds friendlier. (“How could Eddie Chrystian be guilty of taking money? Never!”) If Ed wanted to retain much of his original name, “Eddie Jewish” might work. For sure nobody would associate him with tapioca. And he’d do a hell of a business if he opened a Chinese restaurant.