We will begin our tour of the funniest names we’ve encountered this week with Swiss-born sustainability expert Mathis Wackernagel. I suspect I needn’t even write the rest of this entry, as Mathis Wackernagel is one of those “funny names to end all talk of funny names” type of namedrops. To be honest, Mr. Wackernagel wasn’t really in the news this week, at least not in the papers I read, but I did see his name in a book I began to look through and there was just no way I was about to let a name like Mathis Wackernagel slide. I like it so much I mentioned it four times just in this paragraph.

Young Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy.

In actual news, the Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. To the delight and surprise of many filmgoers around the world, the Best Actress category included 9-year old Quvenzhané Wallis, who became the youngest ever nominee in that category. She was nominated for her performance in indie hit Beasts of the Southern Wild, directed by the well-named Benh Zeitlin. Her nomination also possibly marked the first time in the history of the award that someone was nominated for playing a character called Hushpuppy.

Elsewhere in Hollywood, actress Kate Winslet revealed her funny name loving side by marrying a man named Ned Rocknroll. Ned is the son of eccentric millionaire Richard Branson and clearly has inherited those all-important eccentricity genes. According to one article detailing the new union, he changed his name because he thought “people took themselves and their names too seriously”. Mr Rocknroll originally wanted to just be called Ned, but oddly the British legal system would not allow it. Ned Rocknroll, it certainly has a nice ring to it. Our congratulations to the (presumably) happy couple.

This week also marked the start of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NV, perhaps the only week of the year in which the majority of folks coming to town are mostly there to gawk at TVs and vacuum cleaner robots rather than the city’s other…attractions. Along with the usual avalanche of newfangled gadgets and various beeping and rotating thingiemabobs, the show marks the arrival of many funny named executives, such as German carmaker Audi‘s chief executive Wolfgang Duerheimer, Aereo’s head honcho Chet Kanojia, and of course Ford‘s product manager Julius Marchwicki.

That wraps up our coverage of amusing names for the week – have a lovely weekend!