What’s in a name?

On my sister’s site, Wild Mushrooms, Jenn sometimes posts poetic writing assignments. Today’s creative perspective draws on one she titled Buttered Poetry (now with more salt!).

Write out your name — First Middle Last—and find words using just those letters. How many can you find in 30 minutes? Do you think you got them all?

You can confirm (or cheat) at Anagram Server—be sure to check “print candidate word list only.” I thought I was doing pretty well with over 60 words on my list, but my 24 letter name yielded 3688 words.

Now that you have a list, take a look at it. How many of the words describe your personality or what you do? How many are what you might like to be, but aren’t yet? Which words seem completely wrong or unconnected to you?

I was quite surprised at how many words matched me: cute, temper, luckiest, and, of course, tinker. One word I wish I lived up to: precise. And one that just doesn’t seem to fit at all: centerline.

Posted by kuri at April 23, 2004 06:54 PM