What's in a name?

I promise there's a good reason for this pic.
Ok, "good" may be a stretch, but stick with me.

This probably won't come as a shock to any of you judging by the lack of posts here, but I've found it hard to want to write anything lately. Every time I want to write, I go through the stages of grief again about not having Tormenta around this season and I lose my motivation.

But I could either mope and do nothing, or I could try to shake myself out of my writing funk and get back to doing something that I've always enjoyed and return to the basic premise that I've had since the beginning of this blog. Sports are supposed to be fun. So I'm going to try to have a little fun with this and, hopefully, it's fun for you as well. 

Today, we're looking at the top Charles Dickens Sounding Names in USL League One. You know Dickens. The Tale of Two Cities guy. Oliver Twist. Nicholas Nickleby. You know him. He's got fantastic character names, from Anne Chickenstalker in The Chimes to John and Mary Peerybingles in The Cricket on the Hearth to Josiah Tulkinghorn in Bleak House, and, for obvious reasons, my personal favorite, Luke Honeythunder from The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Please don't get the idea that I'm some kind of well-read guy who spends his time reading Charles Dickens. Let me assure you that my experience with Dickens is reading about 75 percent of Great Expectations in high school and an annual viewing of A Muppet Christmas Carol each December. If you're thinking to yourself "Hey, this guy seems eminently unqualified to embark on a project like this," you would be correct. 

I'm not saying that someone who has read Dickens is a bad thing. In fact, it's just the opposite. I wish I was the kind of person who read more and had an appreciation for the classics. Instead I'm the guy who figures two years is too long to go between rewatching 30 Rock and devotes far too much time listening to podcasts. Yes, even your podcast. Especially yours. Yours is my favorite.

But despite being completely out of my depth on this, I had a few hours last week with nothing else to do and access to the wikipedia page entitled "List of Dickensian characters." If that doesn't qualify me to do this then I don't know what does. Ok, maybe a literature degree, or having taken a class in British Literature, or actually reading one Dickens novel from beginning to end would be nice. Maybe one day, but that's not me right now.

Before we get started, I just want to say that as I was going through the names on the aforementioned Wikipedia page, I came across the best name Dickens ever had for a potential soccer player: George Radfoot. I never saw the movie "Bend it Like Beckham" but I think a sequel to it should just be named "The Legend of George Radfoot." The puns that would result from a guy in the league named Radfoot.  

(From Wikipeida, Radfoot is "The third mate aboard the ship bringing John Harmon back to England. He and Harmon resemble each other and Harmon devises a plan to temporarily exchange clothes and identities with Radfoot so that he can secretly observe his intended bride, Bella Wilfer. Radfoot instead drugs and robs Harmon and is then murdered himself, his body taken for that of John Harmon in Our Mutual Friend. Feel free to impress your friends at parties with that bit of knowledge.)

I picked one player per team based on the roster on their website as of May 7 at 9 p.m. Eastern (it's always good to bury your caveats at the bottom of a long preamble. That way you know everyone read them) and added my thoughts as well. As always, your mileage may vary.

AV Alta: Renden Thomas - I don't feel great about this pick, but I didn't see a lot on AV Alta's roster that screamed "List of Charles Dickens Characters Wikipedia page entries." Honestly not off to a strong start here and maybe going in alphabetical order by team isn't the way to go. But I've already typed them all out so onward we go.

AC Boise: Jake Crull - Apologies to Mr. Crull if his name isn't actually Jacob, but Jacob Crull is absolutely a name that Dickens should have had in one of his stories. It's criminal that it didn't happen. Jacob Crull is the name of a pickpocket who gets in over his head and somehow ends up on a ship to Ireland while hiding from the law and his misadventures in a new land eventually lead to him working for the Governor of the garrison at Carrickfergus Castle.

Charlotte: Clay Dimick - This should be the name of a professor at some university in the Dickens' Universe that facilitates the elopement of two of his students. He probably teaches in the religious studies department but is happy to bend the rules when he feels it necessary. 

Chattanooga: Greyson Mercer - Absolutely the name of the traveling medicine man who comes to town selling his snake oil and manages to always leave town just before the townsfolk catch on to his rouse. He falls in love with the fetching widow of, lets say,  Mortimer Lightwood and tries to go straight before he gets found out.

Corpus Christi: Mason McCready - In a case of nominative determinism, Mason McCready is the name of a stonemason who works for Durdles in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. While Durdles gets the credit for engraving tombstones, it's actually McCready who does the work. 

Fort Wayne: Ian Abbey - After saying McCready was a stonemason, you're all set for me to say Ian Abbey is the name of a reverend at the church in York or something, but no. This is the name of the conductor of the train that left at midnight to take the two students that Clay Dimick helped elope. Dimick and Abbey had a falling out over their pursuit of Anne Chickenstalker, but when she married someone else, they vowed never to let a woman come between them and would do anything to see love flourish elsewhere.

Forward Madison: Collin McCamy - This has to be the name of a coachman who entrusts his wife to run the Inn in Kent. He and his wife fall in with some highwaymen and soon were tipping off would be robbers whenever a wealthy family was staying at their Inn. McCamy started to demand more of a cut for his information and this led to his demise. 

Greenville: Devin Boyce - Dickens had a character named Daniel Doyce, so Devin Boyce is not that far off. I wonder if I could have said that Devin Boyce was already a Dickens name and moved on and gotten away with it. I respect you too much for that. I don't respect you enough to actually read Dickens before writing this, but I won't straight up lie to you.

One Knox: Finn McRobb - One thing that surprised me in my research (which, again, was just looking at a wikipedia page), is that Dickens didn't have any characters named Mc"whatever." Michael Schur, creator of The Good Place who wrote for Saturday Night Live, The Office and also created Man on the Inside, has said before that he tries to avoid using the Mc prefix in names as its lazy writing. (Please don't ask me to cite that, it was on one of the aforementioned podcasts that I listen to.) Despite that, I still could imagine Finn McRobb in a Dickens story. Just ignore that I mentioned that fact after including Mason McCready and Collin McCamry on this list.

Naples: Tony Halterman - Initially I thought I'd have to go with Anthony, but it turns out Dickens had one character named Tony so no need to switch to the more formal name. No offense to Halterman, but this name sounds like a supporting character that doesn't have a major impact on the story. He's an assistant to the clerk at the haberdashery where Finn McRobb goes to get a new suit.

New York: William Noecker - Not the most Dickens sounding name, but there were a few Williams in old Charlie's novels. William Noecker sounds like a guy who is attempting to court a lovely young lass, but unbeknownst to him, someone is trying to sabotage his courtship. Upon discovering the plot, Noecker attempts to confront the would be saboteur but a corrupt judge imprisons him on false charges.

Portland: Hunter Morse - Clearly the name of an attorney who has to defend Josiah Tulkinghorn against charges of swindling two elderly widows of their remaining savings. Tulkinghorn is actually guilty and Morse is aware of this, but he gets his client acquitted and the guilt results in him overcharging future clients to give to the defrauded widows. 

Richmond: James Sneddon - There's a guy named Augustus Snodgrass in Dickens' The Pickwick Papers. I choose to believe that when the Snodgrasses emigrated to the United States, the absolutely changed their name to something like Sneddon. Sneddon, according to HouseOfNames.com, derives from old English words for Snow and Hill. 

Sarasota: Declan Watters - One of the kids in Pip's class in Great Expectations. He doesn't feature prominently in the story but has one scene in the schoolyard where attempts to comfort Pip after Bentley Drummie embarrasses Pip in front of Estrella. 

Spokane: Simon Fitch - A retired naval officer who inexplicably winds up in a love triangle with Miss La Creevy and Peter Magnus. Fitch eventually winds Mss La Creevy's heart, but ends up miserable as the two fight for the remainder of his life. She ends up taking all his money.

Omaha: Laurence Wootton - The son of an overbearing father, Laurence Wootton ends up working in the local mill where he overhears of a plot to rob John Jarndyce, who was called "the best and kindest man ever to appear in a novel" by Vladimir Nabokov. Wootton , unsure of how to thwart the plan, Wootton tells Jarndyce who, due to the goodwill he has in the community, has people disrupt the plot and have the plotters banished from the county.

Westchester: Stephen Payne - This one may sound a little plain, but Dickens had a character named "Stephan Blackpool" and one named Dr. Payne, so yeah, I can imagine Stephen Payne in a Dickens novel.