Following up on our conversation about anadromes, those words that form another word when spelled in reverse, two more examples: Boston Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, who is named for his father Ramon, and a woman called Eldeen, a name inspired by her mother’s passion for sewing. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Ramon/Nomar and Eldeen/Needle Name Reversals”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
We asked our listeners to send us names that are anadromes.
Now, an anadrome, you’ll remember, is a word that, when spelled backwards, forms a whole new word.
So, for example, maybe a little girl is named Noelle because she has an older relative named Leon.
And boy, did our listeners oblige.
We heard from Debbie Trail in St. Charles, Illinois, who pointed out that Nomar Garciaparra, who played for the Boston Red Sox in the 1990s, he was a great shortstop, was named after his father, Ramon.
So Nomar is named after Ramon.
And we should point out, too, that he also has the good fortune to be married to the soccer star Mia Hamm.
Whose first name backward is Aim, A-I-M.
And if I remember correctly, she had great aim on the soccer pitch.
She had fantastic aim.
Good point.
And then we also heard from Karen Corley, who tweets at Logical Poet.
And she said, my fave is the elderly Eldene, who was named for her mother’s great skill and love of sewing.
That’s Eldene, E-L-D-E-E-N, Eldene.
Oh, I like that.
I had an uncle bud, but his real name was Elden, E-L-D-O-N.
Oh, nice.
Does sound like a real name, even though it’s needle.
Yeah.
Needle backwards.
How about that?
I love it.
I mean, sometimes anadromes work really nicely as names.
What name did you make?
What did you put together to name a child or a pet or yourself?
Tell us the story about how your name was made.
Or explain it all in email to words@waywordradio.org.
