What's In A Name?

Apparently, because my name is what it is, I want to kill you. That's right. This Ruvym wants to go on a crazy criminal rampage because, well, that's what you'd expect of someone like me, someone with this crazy name I have, a name that lacks explanation. I mean seriously, what's up with this "u" "v" "y" combo? Where have you seen that before? And "u" and "y" don't even make the sounds they when you pronounce my name. You really say "Roovim" but the spelling should have you saying "Ruvyum." Thanks mom and dad. Thanks for picking a name that's going to make it more likely that I end up being a total psycho.

I say all this because according to a "landmark" study on the correlation between "unpopular" names and criminal activity, boys with messed up names like mine are more likely to be total douchebags. One set of factors show that the person with the unpopular name tends to come from a "disadvantaged home environment," has "residence in a county with a low socioeconomic status," or comes from a "household run by one parent." So this is more of the chicken-egg situation where, because I have a messed up life and my neighborhood sucks and I have no dad, I'm also likely to get a shitty name. That blows, I mean, what a let-down, like all this stuff is crap already and now they gotta go and give me this stupid name so of course I'm going to turn into an asshole.

This of course isn't really about me since I grew up with two parents, my family was working class but I had a decent life, and although I was raised across from a crack house in Queens, the neighborhood wasn't terrible and got cleaned up a lot before my family moved us to the big LI where it was a hell of a lot better.

The other set of factors say that, regardless of where I come from or what home is like, because I have an unpopular name, I will be more "prone to crime" because I will probably be "treated differently by [my] peers" which will make it "more difficult for [me] to form relationships." Plus, "juveniles with unpopular names may also act out because they consciously or unconsciously dislike their names." So now the name is what's turning me into a jerk and I have only my parents to blame.

I look at this analysis and I gotta say that it's spot-on. I remember being at school and having to deal with the taunts from other kids who found a million ways to make fun of my unpopular name. They called me "Ruby Tuesday" (I was also chubby), "Ruvy-Q," "Groovum," "Russian Ruvym," etc. This made it difficult for me to form relationships with others because the taunts turned me into a babbling moron who resorted to torture on small animals and the occasional Satanic ritual. It was around the same time that I stole a Garfield joke book from the Solomon Schechter book fair, a crime which dropped the first domino in the chain that eventually lead me towards bootlegging and prostitution.

And to think, all of this stems from my name. Years later, and thousands of dollars in debt, after all that therapy I spent my time and money on, that's the conclusion I come to from reading a stupid Yahoo! article. Ah! This name!