Who Are We?

About names... Both my new housemates were given names at their foster home (which happens to be my boss’ home). They were named by his young daughter. Norma was named Norma but Alias was named Billy. When I first thought about adopting a male and a female cat I wanted to name the female Billie after Billie Holiday. Theo is named after Thelonious Monk and Ms. Holiday is my favorite female jazz musician...

But it seemed extremely odd to rename her the same sounding name as her brother even though Billy fit him well. I kept the name Norma because she’s blonde and blue eyed just like the most famous Norma Jean. I decided to change Billy’s name to Alias in a nod to this whole difficult naming choice. It’s a reference to the character Bob Dylan played in the movie ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,’ where Kris Kristofferson’s Billy the Kid asks Bob’s character his name and Bob responds, ‘Alias.’ Billy the Kid asks, ‘Alias what?’ To which Mr. Dylan responds, ‘Alias anything you want....’ So there was a connection between a character already named Billy and a deference to my all time favorite artist.

There’s also a nod to a long lost love whose last name was Elias. So there’s that.

Norma is living up to her name by being curious about the images appearing on the large TV screen. Show biz was her namesake’s (Ms. Marilyn’s) salvation and downfall. Alias has already been scolded and responded when he got into places he shouldn’t get into... And he’s gained a middle name that I considered as his name, ‘Kenta’ the Japanese pitcher who shares the same last name as myself who happened to be acquired last year and had a great season this year with the hometown squad.

And Theo? He was the first cat I changed names in welcoming him home. His original name was ‘Dribble,’ for obvious reasons and that seemed to fit him well. His name got changed on the rescue website to ‘Stevie,’ when there was someone stalking him. I consider keeping that name because of Stevie Wonder and Theo has always been full of wonder, but I wanted him to be the first that I gave a name to (I kept Diego and Thompson’s foster names....) I briefly named Theo ‘Cecil,’ after the jazz pianist Cecil Taylor but Theo seemed to fit him better. 

And I did consider for a brief moment to keep Alias’ name ‘Billy’ and rename Norma ‘Billie’ but that would have caused problems when they, as they undoubtedly will, cause problems in this house....