People who self identify using three names aren’t so rare. Not as rare as those who answer to a single name. Bono comes first to my mind. Yes, I’m a U2 fan. Been to Dublin to check out those four croakers. Croke Park Stadium to be exact. Along with about 80,000 other folks swaying and singing in the dark.
To the point, consider all the writers going by three names. Having lived in Louisiana for a spell, Robert Penn Warren of All the King’s Men fame comes to mind. And of course, Zora Neal Hurston, an Alabamian. And Sue Monk Kidd, a Georgian. And Andrew Nelson Lytle, a native Tennessean. Sewanee by way of Murfreesboro to be exact. How’s that for some ‘cross-the-mountain phonetic spelling?
As far as easily recognized people toting three names, Martin Luther King is everybody’s prime mover. And what about Stevie Ray Vaughan? Then there are the tentative ones, the posers who settled for a middle initial. Like Robert E. Lee. Or, consider the extreme case, nothing but initials. Witness, W. J. Cash. But coming off the tongue, those last two legends of the lost cause sound like they might have been better off trading on three names. Robert Eeee Lee. Dubya Jay Cash.
This three name thing could be mistaken for a Southern affectation. That’s my theory. And if it is, I’ll have no part of it.
But what about William Tecumseh Sherman? That infamous Ohio military strategist puts the torch to my nascent Southern affectation theory.
Of course there are way too many Southern writers to try to list here. And most of them played it safe, banking on two names anyway. For them it worked out fine. For Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, Harper Lee, John Grisham, Reynolds Price, Carl Hiaasen, Barry Hannah, Ernest Gaines, Shelby Foote, Tim Gautreaux. Great Cajun name, Gautreaux. Good storyteller too. Need I go on?
Oh, I almost forgot, Flannery O’Connor.
Darned if Flannery O’Connor doesn’t have the same number of syllables as Richard Ellett Mullin. I’ll take my stand with the three name crowd.