Are you like pensioners I wonder who seem to have all the time in the world when they are waiting to have hip replacements and other enormously costly surgeries to help drain the taxed income of us all?

Why I ask is that pensioners have time to think and frankly I can’t wait to be one for a lot of reasons. The first and probably most important reason is that I will be able to recoup all of the taxes that I have paid and of course receive so much more in benefits, healthcare and the like, which you have to admit is a tempting prospect. But more than that, I will be able to have time to think while the pensioners lucky enough to be up ahead of me on the various hospital waiting lists and benefit queues have all manner of important and frivolous procedures carried out on them by health professionals so that they can live even longer and drain so much more money out of the ‘system’ before they complain for their last time.

What I am talking about when I say that I will have time to think is just that, time to sit in a recliner somewhere and actually use whatever portion of grey matter is left by then. And one of the things I want to think about and indeed if I can provide a definitive answer for, is what is the most embarrassing name in the world?

I also want to find the source of snot, you know the runny stuff in the nose, Livingstone found the source of the Nile so it shouldn’t be too difficult, but then that is changing the subject and that is not a good thing to do when writing, which is a shame really because this adorable genius does it all too often.

So which name do you think is the most embarrassing name in the world? Is it a first name like Dick or is it a second name like Hitler?

Obviously I haven’t arrive yet at ‘the’ name because I am not a pensioner and don’t have much time to think about these things, but I have a few candidates which I thought I would share with you and of course I hope that you send in your own suggestions, I also hope that you buy my book – as they say I don’t wish for a lot do I.

Somewhere at the top of any list of the most embarrassing names in the world has to be anyone who is unfortunate enough to have the last name Hitler, and if their first name is Adolf well then! Still Adolf Hitler isn’t the worst name in the world because help is at hand in the form of a free name changing service provided by the German government to change your name if it just happens to be Hitler and you aren’t that happy with it though it has to be said that not all Germans who are called Hitler want to change their names, which is rather revealing isn’t it?

Personally I think that the Saudi government should immediately provide the same service for anyone called Bin Laden because it must be really very difficult to get on an airliner if your name is Bin Laden. Although the real Bin Laden’s family were, and probably still are, residents of the US so presumably they aren’t worried about the name which all means that neither the names Hitler nor Bin Laden are really at the top of the list of worst names in the world.

I have to say high on my list of the worst names in the world would be Poo Bear – imagine a Bear made of Poo and you will see where I am coming from, but still I don’t think that Poo Bear is the worst name in the world do you Disney don’t do they, although they are concerned that Poo’s revenue stream is not as strong as it should be?

Happily we do have a little help in our search for the worst name in the world and that is because of the www (wheally wonderful web) and the gigantic but gorgeous Oprah Winfrey who you may remember devoted a whole show to the worst name in the world. In my opinion it could have been a series because it was by far and away the most interesting show the large but lovely presenter had ever presented.

Here are some of the names that come up time and again but still I think that we haven’t found the ‘big one,’ do tell me what you think and don’t forget to send in your own suggestions as well.

Dick Assman who comes from Canada – he would wouldn’t he! Actually Ramsbottom is a very ‘popular’ (if that is the right word) surname from Yorkshire and one can imagine just what it would be like for Dick Assman to meet a member of the Ramsbottom clan, things would get out of hand!

Still these names aren’t bad enough though are they! They are on a par with the idiot translator’s name John Woodcock apparently at school he was called ‘Timber Tool’ or worse ‘Splinter Pr**k’ but the scars have mostly healed and so Woodcock, though not a name I would choose to live my life with, is not the winner here.

Below is a list of other contenders but still we don’t have one that stands head and shoulders above the rest although the German name of the British Royal family is a bit of a horror and was only replaced by Windsor during the Second World War, just proving that they are the enemy!

Horniman
Smellie
Pigg
Sidebottom
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha the German one mentioned above.

All of the above proves that when I become a pensioner I will have a lot of time to think about the worst name, although I swear once years ago my colleagues and I were listening to BBC Radio 4 and a German expert was introduced to talk about something or the other and his name was Klaus Shirtlifter which you have to admit is not only a contender but also a word not to be played with. I remember we all looked up from doing the clever stuff we were doing and said “Klaus Shirtlifter!” In a variety of disbelieving tones.

Here is the coat of arms of the royal family before they changed their name as you can see as typical Germans their emblems are printed on top of the British ones to show who won the war etc. Though quiet where the Welsh disappeared to no one knows.

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Oprah Winfrey, Pensioners, Royal Family, Adolf Hitler, Bin Laden, Shirtlifter, WWW, BBC Radio 4