(By Dave)
Today’s post marks our 100th post here on the Funny Names Blog (www.funnynamesblog.com), and so it’s a three-parter: our usual daily funny names entry, an announcement of our Nipsey Russell poetry contest winners, and our first ever reader appreciation awards in recognition of the tremendous supporters we’ve had over the past six months. It’s longer than usual, but you can pick and choose the parts you want to read.
This is our 100th post here on the Funny Names Blog!
We want to celebrate it by recognizing you, our enlightened readers. To save space without violating our policy of profiling a new funny-named person every weekday, we’ve decided to devote today’s post to someone who needs no introduction, and who defies analysis (thus allowing us not to write any)!
Like Bubb Rubb and Antoine Dodson before her, Sweet Brown (I hope her middle name is Georgia) is the newest viral video sensation due to her flavorful diction and her fluency in the arcane art of Ebonics. Nothing we could write could add anything to her stupendous homegrown pizazz, so we’ll just leave our obligatory Foxy Brown and blaxploitation references, grab a cold pop, and move on to today’s other important business – the poetry contest winners and our one-of-a-kind reader appreciation awards.
Nipsey Russell Poetry Contest Winners
A few weeks back, we decided to open up a contest for readers who could write the best poems in the style of Nipsey’s hilarious and characteristic quatrains. These are our three winning poets, listed in alphabetical order of their blog name.
Jim Maher
Jim Maher from Books For Boyos, Dude Not Douche, and other blogs
Nipsey Russell loved his words
Like guitar, orange, and tucker
He starred in blaxploitation films
But missed ‘I’m Gonna Git You Sucka!’
Amber, dressing down as Ingrid Bergman
The delightful Amber from Words Become Superfluous
His name might not have the same cachet
As “Ross”, “Pryor” or “Jackson”
But you just can’t tell the story of The Wiz
Without Nipsey’s groovy Tin Man action
Alexandra from Worldly Winds
Alexandra Carr-Malcolm from Worldly Winds, talented poet and the only person I know who has fit the word “oscilloscope” into a rhyming poem
Farewell to dear ol’ Nipsey
he was such a witty poet
the leading quatrain master
to him we really owe it!
Thanks to everyone who participated!
Awards for our Readers & Commenters
We have been extremely grateful to receive so many blogging awards in such a short period of time, and are particularly grateful for the people who awarded them to us. A big reason we haven’t yet involved ourselves in the awards process is because we decided early on that much of our blog’s appeal would come from its somewhat narrow and consistent theme.
However, like any bloggers, we genuinely and truly appreciate the insight, comments, connections, and support of our fellow bloggers and commenters, and we want to acknowledge how much we appreciate you!
So how do you offer awards within a Funny Names theme?
…with funny named awards, of course!
We decided to borrow the ABC Award’s “26 items” framework to honor 26 individuals who have made the biggest impact in helping this blog become what it is today, and present them awards based on which of our first 100 posts best applies to them. They’ll be listed in alphabetical order by blog name (after a few special inductions).
Special Inductions
My Funny Names Blog partners in crime: Arto (originally from Finland but now married to my ex-girlfriend here in San Diego) and Rob (my brother, who was born in Canada but now works as a litigation consultant in Pasadena) receive the Outerbridge Horsey VIII and IX Awards. Outerbridge Horsey VII was our first post, and is still the benchmark for funny-namedness. If Outerbridge Horsey VII doesn’t pass his name on to his male offspring, then the two of you will carry the Outerbridge flag. (You can read a bit about this blog’s history in my Ossee Schreckengost post.)
The stats for our first few months are embarrassing, but Taffy was the lone bright spot, accounting for over half our individual-page traffic at one point.
Jenn L., aka Rhijulbec receives the Taffy Nivert Early Adopter Award. Taffy Nivert was my first post on this blog, and until recently, also our most-visited. Likewise, we’ll always remember Jenn (who doesn’t even blog on WordPress) as our first true follower, and she’s still the leading commenter in our blog’s history, with 33. Who knows where we’d be without her?
… and now, on to the awards
aFrankAngle earns the Ossee Schreckengost Baseball and History Award. My second post will always hold a special place in my heart for two reasons: it was our first baseball post, and it describes our history. We give the baseball and history award to the only person I’ve encountered whose knowledge of baseball history may exceed Rob’s.
Appleton Avenue wins the Sir Stamford Raffles “Names on Streets” Award. We first met Appleton Avenue on our Stamford Raffles post, and Sir Raffles is the king of getting things named after him, which probably includes a few avenues. (It makes sense to me!)
Joe Pineda of Bard of Steel gets the Bone Wars Suggestion Award because I still think he should name his first-born son Bone Wars Pineda, and his writing is almost as prolific as that of Edward Drinker Cope.
Beatrix Mana wins the Vlurma Byrd Naming Skills Award. Our second-leading commenter of all time is an awesome grandmother from the midwest who chooses great names for her children like “Floss”. Vlurma Byrd was the same.
Cal Clutterbuck, whose mustache apparently weighs down his face.
Chris “The Bow Tie Guy” MacLellan earns the Cal Clutterbuck Upper Body Accoutrements Award, because Chris is a hockey fan and both these guys are notable for their above-the-shoulder accessories.
Bumba earns the Jonathan Cheechoo Onomatopoeia Name Award, because he likes our sports posts and their names have similar onomatopoeia-like qualities. But only one is from Moose Factory, Ontario.
J.A. Robinson from The Daily Graff earns the Nipsey Russell Excellence in Wordplay Award. No one makes better or more consistent puns than this guy.
We’re hooking Disfunctional Unit up with the Fearne Cotton “Dreams Come True” Award. Hopefully this gets him one step closer to his goal of meeting Ms. Cotton. (And yes, we deserve full credit for it). There has to be a “Ferns and the Docks” joke in there too…
Gravitas, Baby! wins the Christ Bongo Bombastic Name Award, because of his enthusiastic and awesome comments on that post.
John Phillips of Is it Possible to See It All? gets joint Inga DeCarlo Fung Marchand and Lesane Parish Crooks Awards for his appreciation of music. Double awards for one of our most reliable commenters.
For Marti of Just Outside the Box Cartoons, we’ve drawn up the Klasky-Csupo Animated Personality Award. A favorite blogger of ours. Someday, her cartoons will be as famous as these two Hungarians’.
Stephen Edwards of Life Revolution ought to “be encouraged” by the Vinton Gray Cerf Otherworldly Motivation Award. Like Stephen, Vint Cerf also achieved great success due to sheer willpower.
Life With The Top Down doubles down with the Tallulah Bankhead and Megalyn Echikunwoke Awards. I can’t remember quite when she burst onto the scene, but our third-leading commenter has shown the awesomeness and long-term steadiness that has allowed Megalyn Echikunwoke to become our #1 search result. I threw Tallulah in there because they’re both awesome and Tallulah needs more hits.
The Listverse Comment Effect. Our daily and weekly records are now 600+ and 2000+, and rising, but one comment is where it began.
Listverse gets the Dudley “Mush” Morton Big Hits Award. If it weren’t for Listverse, there is a good chance we would have given up on this blog. After two months of semi-frequent posts, we were struggling to bring in more than 15 hits a day. However, one day in late March, I decided to put a link to one of our posts into a comment on Listverse, and we brought in 200 hits that day. That opened my eyes to the power of the blogging community, and it’s why everyone on this list is here today.
Marie Overfors and Paralax Vu each win Bitsie Tulloch Awards for parlaying their skills with the English language into successful careers, and for being some of our most appreciated readers, much as Bitsie is one of our most appreciated posts. Marie also wins an extra Fritzi Burger Award for being such a generous award-giver, and Paralax gets a bonus Gylfi Sigurdsson Award, just because.
Memoirs of an Evil Stepmom gets the Kjellfrid Irene Andreassen Mothership Award. Because a “motherdom” or “motherness” award wouldn’t be as funny-sounding.
Mark Sackler of Millenium Conjectures wins the Rube Waddell Ridiculousness Award. He’s a newer fan of ours who has already earned some notice. He’s an avid baseball fan and a kindred spirit who formerly kept a funny named baseball players list, and prides his blog on the “ridiculous and sublime” – also a good descriptor for Rube Waddell.
Bella and Didi of Paws to Talk jointly receive the Muffett McGraw and Kimberly Duane Mulkey Award. I considered Outerbridge Horsey VII‘s canines, but then decided on the only post where we profile two females whose job is to provide guidance to younger members of their species.
Susan Shannon of Short Little Rebel gets the Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone Pound-for-Pound Award. I was considering Carrie A Nation, since she’s outspoken about politics and Christian values, but decided on Sly instead, because both have a fighting spirit greater than their stature. Though she has only written a few comments, Susan had one of my all-time favorites which led to the Ed Balls Reflection.
We’ll leave it to you to guess whether this is Britain’s most beautiful woman or a legendary “science poet.” If you can’t answer that question, Erasmus’ ghost will smite you, for the good of the species!
UncleRave receives the Punch Imlach Productive Pugnacity Award. Like Punch, he’s sometimes a bit on the blunt side, but always gives good feedback and motivates us to do better.
Amber from Words Become Superfluous is crowned the Florence Colgate Desirability Award. My favorite comment of all time might be Amber’s comment on that FNITN last week. Women who like the show Community and use words like “swoon” are awesome already, but Amber one-upped that by giving me infinite bragging rights over Arto and Rob as the first one of us to have a young lady swoon and profess her love for me because of my blog writing and television tastes. In return, I’ve decided that our post about the (scientifically!) most beautiful woman in Britain best represents her 🙂
Alexandra Carr-Malcolm from Worldly Winds receives the Erasmus Darwin Brilliance Through Poetry Award. I like a lot of poetry blogs, but Alex’s is my favorite because she uses words like oscilloscope. Erasmus had a similar gift for blending science and verse.
====
Congratulations to all of our awardees, and a big thank you to them and our other fantastic readers. Looking forward to many more hundreds of posts and a reader base that continues to deserve one-of-a-kind awards! Thank you all!
Cheers,
Dave
The Blog of Funny Names 
Oh, I’m gonna go get me a cold pop to celebrate! I am beyond honored to be mentioned on this great page, especially with my girl Sweet Brown. I got time for dat…lol
Glad to hear it! Just giving back to people who have helped us along the way 🙂
Wow … I’m stunned and touched. A special thanks to the Funny Names Academy. I never thought the Ossee Schreckengost Baseball and History Award was attainable, but thanks to knowing other baseball junkies and my friends playing SI All-Star Baseball at all hours of the day in college, they helped set the foundation for this day. As they look down from above, I know my parents are smiling and proud.
Haha, we should really form a Funny Names Academy… thanks for the idea!
P.S. All your college friends looking down from above tells me one of two things: 1) you’re still living in your college dorm’s basement, or 2) you must have had some pretty insane college parties!
I hope your parents are proud! You’re the smartest, coolest, most handsome, kindest, and toughest Ossee Schreckengost Baseball and History Award winner of all time!
Well then … retire the award!
I did put together two all-time teams made up of guys who were the only players with than first name. Actually did two (cut the alphabet in half). Here’s the second half, but the first half is in the text.
http://afrankangle.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/on-the-all-time-only-guys-ii/
I’m uncharacteristically SPEECHLESS! (It never lasts long, though.) THANKS for giving me the “Nipsey Russell Excellence in Wordplay Award!” This means more to me than winning the Pulitzer Prize for Literature (mostly because THAT’S not going to happen.) I’ve always considered myself a “Wordsmith,” but it’s nice to get the confirmation.
Thank you – you certainly are a wordsmith, but I hope you recover from your speechlessness soon!
A double award, I’m flattered, and all because I like to talk (type?) Makes me wish I had a funny name.
Me too… I have a very dull name as well (last name is Carlson). Thanks for all your support!
And CONGRATULATIONS on your Centennial post! May you have many more Centennials! (You will never run out of material as long as parental units are allowed to name children and people acquire nicknames.)
Thank you! Yes – I also agree that it’s surprisingly hard to run out of funny names material, even when we confine our list to only famous/notable people. It’s a goldmine out there!
Congrats on your 100th post… Somehow, I would have thought the name “Le Clown” would have shown up by now…
Le Clown
Thank you! There are a number of incredible names that haven’t shown up yet – Benedict Cumberbatch, Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr., Firpo Marberry – but one of these days, they certainly will. It’s amazing how many funny names exist in the world – especially once you start paying attention to them!
Dave,
Indeed… “Le Clown” for example.
Le Clown
Oh, I dunno…but Lord Evil Poppy perhaps…
Appropriate that this award is given out on the same day of the NHL awards! This is like my day with the Stanley Cup. Of course i have to thank my ‘teammates’ Larry ‘is he’ Goodenough and Larry ‘does he’ Playfair for helping me achieve this award. They were (Guppy) Troupers to play along. Will the award show be on ESPeN Knutsen as I will want wear my best bow tie!
Haha, good name-dropping with the Guppy Troup reference! I can tell you’ve been paying attention, which is how your name ended up in this post in the first place 🙂
This is kind of like a Stanley Cup, except rarer and more prestigious 🙂
I think Larry Goodenough shares a name with this guy: https://funnynamesblog.com/2012/02/06/izzy-skenazy-child-prodigy/
You shouldn’t need an excuse to wear your best bowtie! Being the bow tie guy should be enough 🙂
Personally I loved the ESPeN Knutsen reference. Everyone loves Norway’s finest hockey player, he should have his own channel. They could rename ESPN 11 in his honor.
I agree 100% I think Chris Berman would love this blog!
Fitting that as a Toronto girl, my comment comes after talk of a rare Stanley Cup. I know how THAT feels, believe me!
Dave, thank you so much for the kind words! The quality and consistency of the posts you and the boys come up with are totally inspiring. Tell Arto and Rob I love them too…but you’re still my favourite 🙂
Congrats on your milestone post, Dave! And thanks for the likes on my blog.
Can’t believe there hasn’t been a post on legendary NASCAR driver Dick Trickle yet, he seems like a natural for this blog! (Actually, a lot of old NASCAR drivers would be naturals for the funny names blog)
Keep up the good work!
NASCAR does have a great deal of awesome names. With one post per day, I’m sure a few will trickle in in the next few months! Dick is certainly on our list.
Wow, who would have thought giving my blog a street name would lead to this. I am indeed speechless. The best part of your award, though, is not having to send a bunch of emails to other people after you win. The Sir Stamford Raffles prize no less. I’m actually impressed with myself.
Thanks for the shout out.
I agree with the “best part.” I have been given several peer-to-peer awards that I can’t list on my site yet, because I’ll have to take a whole day to comply with the rules!
Being a native Rochestarian, and of a certain age, I have fond memories of Punch Imlach. I was just a young teen during his Buffalo Sabre inaugural years, but it coincided with my burgeoning interest in the great sport of hockey! Thanks for the great award – and plug – my friend.
Here’s a very late entry to the Nipsey Russell Poetry Contest:
Nipsey always loved the small screen
And the small screen sure loved him
Less talent than Laurence Olivier
But more talent than Tiny Tim
You know I’m lovin’ Sweet Brown! Pop??? Sounds like she might be a Buffalo Gal!
— Your Uncle Rave
Thanks! It’s an honor coming here and reading your blog, as well as receiving an award for it.
I swear I was watching an old time Western the other day and some guy called Handy Jobs appeared.
Yep, The Academy of Funny Names is almost a necessity;) Thank you SO MUCH for those two awards, which I’ll bet no one else in Blogland has (including YOU, Mr. Evil Le Clown, whose carnie/heckler I am not!). Uh, but perhaps next time (even though the link works), you could get my name right;-)
I was so overwhelmed with the awards and racing to post on my own blog about them that I forgot to congratulate you on your 100th–Congrats! Oh, and Sweet Brown is surely so sweet;-)
Congratulations on your 100th post. At some future time, could you find out about Bessie Hamburger? She is mentioned in Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people.” With a name like that, there has to be a place somewhere for her in the halls of funny-namology.
Hi Dave and Co,
Well how could I not like this post? In fact I love it (nothing to do with the fact I was mentioned, I assure you)…..and you managed to keep true to yourselves- clever post!
Marti
Thanks Marti! Just looking back at this post in honor of my personal 100th post (which will go live on Monday). How have you been lately? It’s been a while!
All good here now that I’m out of that box. Still drawing cartoons and enjoying it.
Marti
Man, all this love is giving me bronchitis. Here’s to another 100!
Say, thanks for the award. And you deserve an award for spelling. I won’t even try to spell omonomanamaneschevitz….
Thanks Dave. In my short career as a blogger this has become favorite (besides my own of course). Keep up the good work and look for me to recognize Funny Names in a post coming soon.
Just looking back at this in light of my 100th post (which will be going live on Monday). We’ve come a long way since then! Glad to have you on board!
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Hey, I found an article that you made me think of you.
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2012/01/12/engelbert-humperdinck-marries-benedict-cumberbatch-for-a-laugh/
😀
Oh man, that’s good stuff! I’ll have to fit that into a post soon!
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Piece of writing writing is also a excitement, if you know after that you can write or else it is complicated to write.
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