There are approximately seven billion people on this planet and one of the few things that unites us all is that we all have a name. Your entire name might be as short as three characters, or it may contain as many as 25 middle names, but it is still a name. This remains true even if your parents decide to, somewhat cruelly, add 2.0 to your name.

There are plenty of other unusual names out there – many of them brought into existence by celebrities with more money than sense – but I’m not really interested in these outlandish monikers. What intrigues me more are names which are, for the most part, perfectly respectable. That is unless you happen upon these otherwise respectable names in the wrong context.

For example, I find it unlikely that the media tycoon, and former darling of daytime TV, Oprah Winfrey could ever have made it as an opera singer. Even if she had a voice that was unmatched by any other, I doubt she would have coped with years of hearing herself described as ‘Oprah the opera singer’. The only solutions would be to a) change your name or b) find a different career.

Closer to home, I wonder if there has ever been a ‘Lucy Davis’ who has been dissuaded from joining our fine university because of the pain that would result from telling people “I’m Lucy Davis at UC Davis”. Though maybe she could make it work if she excelled at a sport, giving fans the easiest sporting chant ever.

Let’s take another example. We can imagine that our hypothetical Lucy has a sister called Mavis who is considering applying for a job with a certain car rental company that has a branch in this town. But wait, does she really want to end up in a job where she will have to tell people that she is ‘Mavis Davis of Davis Avis’? No. No she doesn’t. She rips up her job application and resigns herself to never working here.

So I think that it’s time we started breaking down these name-barriers. We should let the world know that if you want to come to Davis to live or work here, then we’ll welcome you no matter what your name is. To that end, I say that we need to get this guy to come here and run for mayor.

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