There really is a lot to like about Britain. They’ve given us Dickens, the Faces and the Rolling Stones, Monty Python, Ricky Gervais and penicillin. If that weren’t enough, they also seem more than happy to take Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow off our hands for at least a few months each year. Granted, they shipped a couple of Spice Girls over to our side of the pond just to keep things even, but I feel that was a more than fair trade. Actually, other than a couple of wars a long time ago, we’ve been on pretty good terms. This is why I feel a bit of their pain in regards with what’s happening to them now. It’s not an absolute catastrophe, but it’s sad nonetheless.

In the last century, their awesome/funny/really awesome surnames have been making a sharp decline. There are now only 750 poor bastards with the name Cock, down from more than 3,000 in 1981. There are half as few harassed folks with the last name of Balls over the same period of time. Even the name Death, while not nearly as funny as the other two, has decreased significantly. How the hell is a stand-up comedian supposed to interact with the crowd in that poor country if all of these names fall by the wayside?

I felt a bit out of touch when I came across the article informing me of this. How the piss did I not know Britain had all these funny-assed names? Here I was in third grade trying to figure out a dirty rhyme for Martin or Smith so I could make fun of my classmates and all I had to do was move to England where the names practically made fun of themselves. Considering how much time I spent on such endeavors, a move across the ocean really could have made me a far better student. Actually, that might not be true. I could have went into stupid comedy overload and never recovered.

I am a little jealous, though, because the list of disappearing names actually just keeps getting funnier. Smellie and Daft aren’t nearly as common as before. You can also add Gotobeds, Shufflebottoms and Cockshotts to the list. It’s really too bad those names are disappearing. I would think names such as these would really help the unattractive British man. Sure, he might not be the pick of the litter, but I would imagine most any woman with the last name of Shufflebottom would be more than likely to overlook his shortcomings just to get a different last name. Hell, the guy’s last name could be Dipshit and it’s almost a step up.

Richard Webber, the fella who came up with this study and who has a pretty airtight name as far as ridicule goes, says the names aren’t going away because of attrition. “If you find the absolute number goes down, it’s either because they changed their names or they emigrated.” I would assume it’s mostly because they’ve changed their names. I mean, who leaves a country with so many Smellies and Dafts? Oh wait, probably people named Smellie and Daft. Oh, I get it now. At least it’s a better situation than having the last name of Hitler in Germany after World War II.

I’m sure they all get a ton of ridicule for their names, and I can more than understand the dwindling use of Cockshotts as a last name. Sure, it’d be nice if they kept them just for my benefit, but how can you really blame them? The sad problem is that at one time, their names probably weren’t all that strange. They just became that way as language evolved.

Cock probably used to be based on rooster. It was likely a proud name before some smartass along the way decided to make it seem dirty. Somewhere in time, these people had to come up with a last name for themselves, and most people wouldn’t pick something that could be considered foul or something so easily mocked. I’m sure no one has ever said, “Hey, I need a last name to pass down to the generations that will follow. Let’s see, Pukeswallow is pretty offensive, and I’m sure others will make fun of it. Yes, Pukeswallow will be my legacy, the cross my ancestors will have to bear.”

No matter how any of these names came about, some folks probably just decided enough was enough. It’s hard to blame them. Hell, if my first name in grade school had been Jerry, I would have probably been pretty close to changing that. I’m sure the immediacy would have been much greater had my last name also been Shufflebottom. There has to be almost infinite possibilities for mockery in such a situation.

It has gotta be tough for them. I can’t imagine being so embarrassed by a surname that I felt compelled to change it to be taken seriously. I’ve always sort of liked my last name. It’s something special and unique that I feel keeps me in touch with my ancestors. It’s sort of a point of pride, and I’m not sure I could just walk away from it. I suppose that’s easy to say, though. In the near future, if “Coulter” becomes a slang word for testicles, I may have quite a bit of soul-searching to do. Actually, it might be sort of funny at first, probably not so much after a while.