P as in Paul, A as in Apple...

I have a very unique name. A couple of them, actually. The Social Security Administration keeps a list of the top 1000 names given to newborn children registered in that year. To play with this, you can go to http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/ and look up your name or a year and see how popular it is.

According to the SSA, Clint has not been in the top 1000 since the year 2000, when it was number 918. In the year that I was born, it was ranked at 359, with 541 babies registered with that name.

My middle name, Michael, has been in the top 3 for the last 100 years.

Last names aren’t tracked by the SSA as far as I can tell, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I do, however, have a surprisingly unique last name. I have very rarely come across any Parrys that I was not related to. I have met plenty of Perrys in my life, but Parry is apparently quite a recessive name.

Here in Ohio, I have met another family of Parrys, but they claim that their name was changed from Perry a few generations ago as another family of Perrys lived nearby, and it simplified things at the Post Office.

The problem with the Parry/Perry ratio is that everyone assumes Parry is spelled with an E. There have been a lot of famous Perrys through the ages, a search on Wikipedia turns out a couple hundred people with Perry for either a first or last name, yet only 25 famous Parrys.

I had thought with there being a family or two around here with their names spelled Parry, the locals of this area would understand that Parry can (and should?) have an A. No such luck. When I introduce myself over the phone, sometimes I have to pronounce it “Pah-ree” just to get people away from the concept of Perry with an E. However, pronouncing it that way, I once had someone ask me, “Do you mean Paris? Like the city in France?”

It turns out, we Parrys in Ohio will always be overshadowed by Commodore Oliver Perry, for whom the city of Perrysburg is named. Foiled again by those omnipresent Perrys.

There are a lot of places named for Perrys, and only a few named for those of us with an A. The province of Ontario has the township of Perry, which is located in the Parry Sound District and the city of Parry Sound. It looks like we won Ontario.

What has generally annoyed me about Perrys vs. Parrys is that I’ve never considered Perry to be a word. At least Parry can mean something. In fencing and swordplay, a parry is a block of the opponent’s strike. It is also used in general to refer to the warding off of any attack, as in physical or verbal. “The politician parried the reporter’s accusations with a carefully worded, probably pre-prepared alibi.”

I looked it up, apparently perry can be a word. Perry can refer to an alcoholic cider made of Pears. You know, just as Sherry is made of Shears.

I wouldn’t mind as much if once in a while someone would misspell my name Pearry, at least the A would be present.

My first name is almost never spelled incorrectly. There have been enough famous Clints (Clint Eastwood, Clint Black) that my first name is usually understood. Over the phone, people occasionally mishear it as Cliff, which I don’t mind as much.

I don’t get it as often now, but growing up I was constantly referred to as Clinton. My name is not Clinton. It has never been Clinton. I had people who knew me for 15 years say to me, “Huh. I always just thought that Clint was short for Clinton. Or Clintonian.” But it isn’t. That’s my personal tragedy of the Bill Clinton presidency. I used to get all the time, “Your name is Clinton? Like the President.” No. No no no. Clint. Like Eastwood.

My poor brother gets both of his names murdered on everything. My mother gave him the unique name of Colin. We have seen it spelled every different way. Collin. Collen. Kolin. Kollein. Colon. Kelvin. The funny thing is, I have probably met 5 other Colins in the past 10 years. All spelled COLIN. Where do these other mutant spellings come from?

My family is just doomed to have our names misspelled. Along with my mother Christa (Krista, Krysta, Krystal) we get to carry this for the rest of our lives. Such is the cost of our uniqueness.

By the way, there are 2 other Clint Parrys out there in the world that I have found on Facebook. One is does something with Technology Product Management in Atlanta and enjoys mountain biking. The other is some sort of business consultant in Tucson, Arizona. I bet they understand my Clinton Perry problem.