Much like the Iowa Barnstormers’ roster, if you look closer at this photo, you will see there’s more than initially meets the eye!
Don’t have time for a full post this morning, but woke up early to a text from Rob about his 70-hour work week and assumed he wouldn’t be able to make today’s Wednesday post in time. I was just reading about Vacaville, CA (don’t ask, just appreciate!) and ran across this doozy of a name:
Xzavie Jackson
Not sure if I even need to say anything more after that, but Xzavie Jackson of Vacaville, CA is a professional football player, currently with the Iowa Barnstormers in the Arena Football League. Before that, the former Missouri Tigers standout played for the RiverCity Rage of the Indoor Football league and the Edminton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League (one of my favorite sports calls ever occurred in 2006 when I was watching the Grey Cup – basically Canada’s Super Bowl – and the announcer said “There’s an injured Eskimo on the field!”). He was also a member of the offseason and practice squads for the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals and the Philadelphia Eagles for three seasons.
Here’s hoping Xzavie (whose name is likely a variant on the pronunciation of “Xavier” as ex-zay-vee-ur rather than ha-vee-air or zay-vee-ur) can get a big break and break through for an NFL squad in the near future. In any case, he’s made his mark on the world and earned a spot on our esteemed blog!
We Need You!
…to save us from our shamelessly unoriginal use of patriotic imagery!
Today’s happenings alerted me to an issue we’ve been trying to resolve since October 19th (honest to goodness, that’s not not just a thinly-veiled Community reference… that’s about when it started happening) – our schedules are becoming more demanding and it is becoming harder and harder to meet our weekly posting goals. For nine months, we stayed true to our “one post every weekday” schedule, but lately it’s been hard for any of us to do more than one post a week – particularly Arto and I, who had previously arranged to do two. Arto and I spoke the other day and thought that one post a week for each of us seemed doable – one of us would post on Monday and the other on FNITN Fridays.
But we’d hate to see The Blog of Funny Names languish in a substandard level of activity, so we’re calling on our favorite part of the blog – our loyal readers!
Would any of you like to guest post on our blog – perhaps once a month or every two weeks – on a Tuesday or Thursday? I’ve been doing this long enough to know that there are plenty of very talented writers who happen to love funny names, and we’d love to have you join the team, and we promise we won’t treat you like the new kid!
What’s in it for you?
- The opportunity to write, which is a goal unto itself.
- Fun! Seriously, writing for the blog and interacting with our awesome commenters is a heck of a lot of fun.
- The chance to reach a new audience – we are now pulling in 200+ readers every day, and many, many more on certain days (including Tuesdays and Thursdays) – and you will be able to not only have your name attached as an author, but can also put a little blurb linking to your blog at the bottom of each of your posts – in fact, we encourage it. (You can also play a little game called “sneak as many self-links into one post as innocuously as possible” – which is another game we quite enjoy!)
- A new challenge. It’s been said that restrictions breed creativity – you often stretch your creativity by pushing yourself in new directions. I’ve often been impressed by where my writing took me when I was forced to address a particular subject on this blog. My Independence Day post is a notable example. As were my grueling, but awesome, 100th post and Bone Wars! offerings, and my Alert! one (which I wrote in 18 minutes and wasn’t even on anything).
- The chance to attach to a little engine that could. Our blog has been growing constantly, and has now cracked the bottom of Google’s first page of search results for “funny names” (though we’ve always been near the top for “Megalyn Echikunwoke” and “Taffy Nivert death” despite her still-living state). In the past 2-3 months we’ve gone from “usually breaking the 100 mark” to “rarely dipping below 200 hits a day, even Sundays”, and the sky is the limit, especially as we add more content. You can say you’ve been a part of it since the beginning.
- Our undying appreciation. We’ll love you more than we love Dick Butkus. Which, if you’ve read lately, is a lot!
So, if anyone is interested, please let us know! We’d be glad to have you, even if for just 1-2 posts a month. Amb (I even sneaked in an “October 19th” reference just for you!), Mark, Life With The Top Down, Frank, Fannie/Tracy, Liz, Becky, and anyone else! We love you!
The Blog of Funny Names 
seriously? my name is on your list? Wowza–thanks, am flattered:-) I’d have to stick to food themes and keep in mind that I am SO NOT as witty as you. (better looking, maybe, but that’s not what this is all about–haha ;-)) Sure, I’ll do it once a month, but only for all of the reasons you gave (really good ones, btw). IF you don’t come to your senses and realize that my posts would not be up to your usual awesome standards. ?? holler back here or fb.
Of course you made our list! You’re one of our faves. You’re like the better-looking, food-(and cooking)-loving
momolder sister I never had! 🙂You could totally stick to food themes. There are a ton of great food-related names. I’m sure you could get several years worth of material just out of chefs alone – Emeril Lagassi, Rocco DiSpirito, Giada de Laurentiis … it almost seems like a prerequisite to cooking fame is having an awesome name – and if not that, then there are tons of food and beverage-related names that could last a country mile.
We appreciate the sentiment, but hope you realize that our standards haven’t always been awesome. For example, in our first ever post, (on my favorite name ever, Outerbridge Horsey VII), even Arto (who I consider the funniest of the three of us) labored to find jokes that were more than tongue-in-cheek. https://funnynamesblog.com/2011/12/05/outerbridge-horsey/ It takes a while to find the right voice and get used to posting in irreverent, concise, wit-laden posts. Especially when your background is in textbook-editing, sportswriting, and reading scientific manuscripts like mine has been.
Anyway, we’d love to have you! I’ll let you know more details tonight or tomorrow. Running off to my “Recombinant DNA Techniques” lab right now.
I am so too young to be your mom! Let’s not start insulting the help before they start helping you 😉 Hope your lab was a good one–that actually does sound interesting. Cookbook authors have some fun names, too, so we’ll be good. Again, appreciate being asked. Am indeed honored.
Dave, I would be honored to guest author. Just let me know the details.
Awesome, that’s fantastic! I’m super excited and think you’ll be a great addition! I’ll let you know later tonight or tomorrow. Running off to my early-morning Recombinant DNA Techniques lab right now!
I heart you and your October 19th references! I’d love to be a guest author, and am thrilled to bits you’d even ask. I’m listening to the funny-named (and Canadian!) Feist right now – it must be a sign!
Dave-Thanks for the shout out. I would love to help. I could do something once a month. Just let me know the details.
Schedules have a way of getting in the way. Same issue from time to time.