Name Change
In which Rat is cautiously optimistic
Good time of day, humans!
Some time ago, there was this funny little bit of news…
North Texas man changes name to ‘Literally Anybody Else' to run for US president
On a second thought, perhaps ‘Mya Diaf’ has a better chance of becoming a household name.
These name changing tricks aren’t exactly new. Perhaps the best known case is the Canadian man who changed his name to ‘Above Znoneofthe’ (sic! Z was there to ensure last spot on the ballot) in 2016 or so. He has participated in several elections but, to my knowledge, never made it past 1%. In 2006 a Tennessee man changed just his middle name to ‘None of the Above’ but was unable to get it to appear on the ballot.
There have been people changing their names for elections in the UK, Australia and Ukraine as well, not to mention multiple political parties name along the lines of «none of the above» of «against all»; but perhaps the best performance was achieved by Absolutely Nobody who came in third with close to 7% of votes in the election for lieutenant governor of Washington (some sources say Oregon but I guess that’s a mistake) in 1992, before dying in 1993.
Vote percentage might increase if the candidate names more accurately reflected political reality, e.g. Senior Comprador, Depraved Gigolo, Murder Hobo, etc...
This reminds me of how my teacher Latin/Greek explained how in his view Odysseus could confuse the Cyclops in the cave.
Asked for his name, Odysseus stumbled and mumbled which made his name sound like ‘Oudeis’, Nobody.