What surname is one that you think is very cool?

Kamakaleiimalamalamaiaik

Montague and Capulet have always seemed like great last names.

@omtatsat That’s short for?
@elbanditoroso Pronounced as?

Actually Kamakaleiimalamalamaiaik is a first name.

Anantanarayanan
Indian jurist and author. John Updike enshrined his name in a poem. I don’t think his implied pronunciation was right, though: I believe it stresses the wrong syllables.

Csikszentmihalyi
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Hungarian-American psychologist. I used to run into his name frequently when I was editing psychology books. I had my own affectionate pronunciation for it, which wasn’t like this.

Esa-Pekka Salonen
The whole name, not just the last.
Finnish composer and conductor. Every time I hear his name spoken on the classical radio station, I think the host must be savoring his name. I think getting to say his name all the time might be a good enough reason to go into classical radio.

J.K. Rowling has her pluses and minuses as an author, but you have to grant that she shows a great love of names, both invented and adopted. She may go a bit too far with some (for instance, all those Latin given names among the Hogwarts faculty, as if they’d been named only after they got there, which, of course, they were), but her fascination with onomastics adds a lot of color and flavor to her stories.

Britain is full of (to me) amazing and delicious personal and place names. Just watching the credits roll by on a BBC production is almost like having a second dessert.

I have a doctor with the last name “Savage.” Doc Savage.

She does not look the part.

McCool
Sixkiller
Freeman
Ventura
Lipschitz
Wong
Awad
Elrod
Lightfoot
Cherry
Labian

I need to stop now…

Bond . . . . . James Bond !

Marryme.

One of partners in a law firm in my building is Magnanimo and I’ve always thought it was cool.

During the last season of Game Of Thrones, which coincided with Marvel’s Infinity War/Endgame, everyone wanted their last name to be Stark.

Nutz, first name Deez

Koolman

Picardo. From Gremlins two. Also Roberto Picardo was the emergency holographic doctor in Star Trek Voyager.

Mountbatten
Windsor
Though I wouldn’t want the media attention accompanying either name, but the history must be savored.

Ooh, and Midnight. And Dell’Aquila. And one I just heard for the first time: Oldknow.

And if you really want some great names, look here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dickensian_characters

Etcheverry is a good name. Variant Echeverria. It’s of Basque origin, like my own surname.

@Jeruba Esa-Pekka Salonen is a great name. Another good name in classical music is Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Rolls off the tongue.

And I’ll always think Enzo Ferrari is one of the best names there ever was.

I have a cool married surname. Can’t share it, but a lot of people comment. A couple of famous people have it, but not always spelled exactly the same way.

One of my friend’s maiden name is Viviano, which I think is very pretty. She said it was a pain because people couldn’t pronounce or spell it and for the life of me I can’t understand that. It is pronounced exactly as it is spelled. It’s poetic. I expect a Viviano to be living in Verona and have a beautiful garden at their house.

Hornblower is cool. As in CS Forster’s novels, Horatio Hornblower. “Beat to Quarters!” Always wanted to say that.

Rudabeh Shahbazi was a newscaster for one of our local stations.

I like her name because it sounds like Rutabaga SoupNazi.

Otherwise, my current favorite surname is Fartatodoomplianus.

Once, about 25 years ago, I got lost in a city near my job. I stopped at the police department to ask directions and I remember the cop’s name was Mastrogiacomo. That’s a long one! Pronounced “mastro jock a mo.”

(French) Jean-Claude Killy (Kee-lay)
If pronounced correctly, Yves Saint Laurent is very lyrical
Scheherazade
Sacagawea

I used to know a couple of men named Hedgecock.

I have also known several people named Peacock, and I have been jealous of that one.

I like Meriweather. It sounds so cheerful.

@Patty_Melt, hmm, sounds a lot like Hitchcock. I bet they’re from the same source.

Gaylord is an interesting name, and its German equivalent, “Homofürst”.

Mervyn Peake invented some great names: Fluke, Perch-Prism, Flannelcat and Dr Prunesqualler are three examples.

Lord Monboddo featured in Alasdair Gray’s Lanark but was also a real-life person.

I always liked Daniel Pinkwater.

I grew up with someone whose last name was “Bellwitch.” That one always seemed cool to me.

@JLoon I am a McCool descendant.

So, not McLovin?

McFly rings a bell !

@anniereborn – Then you’ll never be uncool ;)

Dick

Welcome, and thank you!

@omtatsat: I used to have a boss whose last name was Dick. She said her daughter was becoming a doctor and was changing her name so she wouldn’t be Doctor Dick.

Is “Dick” a better or worse name to have than Mainus?

Zuckerberg. It’s a german name. Translated means a mountain of sugar. I’snt that sweet!

Does anyone have handy an old thread about names which were weird or appropriate to their occupation? That would be fun to resurrect. I don’t remember when I saw it, or who posted it.

I think my husband’s family made their last name up. His grandfather immigrated from Greece. Usually you can cross reference a last name on an etymology website and get some inkling. My husband’s last name gets absolutely 0 hits.

@Dutchess_III A lot of names were “made up” by clerks at Ellis Island. They would shorten or anglicize the names of non-English speaking immigrants.

I just wish I could find something close to it.