HOW MANY JOHN MCFARLANDS DOES IT TAKE TO… [T, 2-4-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—HOW MANY JOHN MCFARLANDS DOES IT TAKE TO… [T, 2-4-25]

 

Today is my birthday, so I looked up John McFarland on Google. Turns out that there are 1316 people in the US—mostly men, I assume--named John McFarland, “in places like Ohio,” it goes on to say, as though Ohio might be an especially useful place to be named John McFarland. I guess so; I was born there. So was my great-grandfather, John White McFarland. [1]

I had no idea there are so many of us. We could have a club.

It wouldn’t be nearly as big as the Jim Smith Society. The folks of that name, male and female [Yes, they admit Jimmies] even have an annual convention, no name tags required. They are never embarrassed by forgetting the name of another attendee.

Several years ago, we checked into a motel in East Lansing, MI, on a trip to bring granddaughter Brigid home for a college break. The receptionist was confused. She had us down both for one night and for two. Helen thought it might be because she [Helen] had called twice, because she had to make a change from the original reservation. But the receptionist decided it was probably because another John McFarland was involved, because, she said. “It’s a very common name.”

Really? In East Lansing, Michigan? She must have grown up in Ohio.

Well, yes, I know that it’s a common name, but not quite as common as Jim Smith. Also, I’m the only one with that name, except for my father and the other 1316.

Back when I was in college, all basketball players were named Johnson or something similar. Watching college basketball now, I’m often confused by the hyphenated last names of players. When you know the name only from hearing the commentators announce it, or mispronounce it, it often sounds like they are calling a player by first and last names, like Winston Morgan when he played for IU. For some reason other players were called only by last names, but he was always given both. Once someone referred to him only as Morgan and I had no idea who they were talking about. That’s why the names of players should always be on the backs of their jerseys. But these days, with a hyphenated name like Rodriguez-Wojtowicz, the letters are so small they are hard to read.

Hyphenated names have always existed, but they got a real boost from the women’s lib movement of the 1960s. [The movement for full rights for women had been going on for a long time, in various ways, but it wasn’t until the ‘60s that it was regularly called women’s liberation.] As women protested losing their family identity by taking the names of their husbands, one of the solutions was using both names, with hyphens. A couple of those couples were personal acquaintances, the Neufer-Emswilers and the Birkhahn-Rommelfangers. We often wondered what they would do if a child of the Neufer-Emswilers married a child of the Birkhahn-Rommelfangers. They certainly could not play basketball.

Anyway, today I am doubly infinitized. [An 8 horizontally is the sign for infinity.] So I feel doubly blessed. Thank you for being part of that birthday blessing.

John Robert McFarland

1] There is probably a simple migratory reason why John McFarlands proliferate in Ohio. Scots-Irish folk immigrated to America primarily in southern Virginia and the Carolinas and then--the never-quite-satisfied-with-where-they-be people that McFarlands are--worked their way up through Appalachia to Ohio and Indiana.

 

In Scotland we heard a folk singer warble, in Celtic, a song, when translated into English, says, “Grab your spears and grab your wife and run for your life, because the McFarlands are coming.” Consider yourself warned.

When a history professor of daughter Katie learned that her father was a McFarland and her mother a Kerr [pronounced Karr], he turned pale. What kind of offspring might come from the two most notorious Scots clans?