WHAT’S IN A NAME?

When I was fourteen, our family moved to a larger house.

It was not much of a move: roughly three blocks, less than half a mile. Our new home was on Pocahontas Street.

My hometown, it should be explained, was riddled with Native American place names. The town itself was Massapequa, from the Indian tribe that ostensibly had made its home there. We had street names like Unqua Road, Shinnecock Avenue, Iroquois Street, Algonquin Avenue, and (of course!) Pocahontas Street. That’s how we honored the people whose land our ancestors drove them from: we named streets after them. Sweeeet.

Shortly after we had established ourselves in our new home, we got a dog, a purebred Airedale whom we named Bengal’s Princess Pocahontas - after our new street, naturally. “Pokey” - for thus we called her, Bengal’s Princess Pocahontas not exactly something that rolled trippingly off the tongue - was a sweet thing whose life, unfortunately, was cut short at ten years due to a spinal tumor.

What is the point of all this Useless Reminiscence? You may well ask.

It is said by the Lords of the Internet, in a meme that has circulated extensively via e-mail and at various web sites, that one’s Porn Star name is the name of one’s childhood pet, conjoined with the name of the street on which one lived.

Which would make my Porn Star Name Pokey Pocahontas.

That’s a great Porn Star Name - but not necessarily for me. It seems to conjure up images of a buckskinned Native American maiden with a strap-on...