I am giggling about this because I just youtubed Xanadu and watched about 1:30 of the
Olivia Newton-John / ELO song and am highly amused.
There was a story a while back on NPR about unusual nicknames. One of the people who talked about his nickname said he often went by "Kub" prn Koob. Kub was short for Kubla. That was his full name: Kubla.
He said that his dad was really into the poem Kubla Khan by Coleridge and that he was named after the title character.
He also said that his brother was nearly named Xanadu.
I had
just memorized Kubla Khan when I heard this story, so I was like "OMG REFERENCE TO IT ON THE RADIO! COINCIDENCE OF MAGIC"
I went back and told my English teacher about it. "It is good that he was NOT named Xanadu," he said, "because to anyone my age it connotes only that terrible movie and that song - " then he began to sing a little bit
he had told us about the movie before, too.
Anyway, all of this aside,
Kubla Khan came up spontaneously a few days ago and I am remembering how much I love it and thinking about what an awesome set of syllables Xanadu is and how it would be such a better posting name than Tippins and how I have never felt comfortable with Tippins anyway. Then I started thinking "Oh hm it would be a cool name in general"
I wonder if there have been any babies named Xanadu! Probably! LOL poor kids! LOL!
I am mostly considering it as a middle name. In case, you know, any future husband of mine hates everything Catholic and hates 2 middle names and loves Coleridge and fun middle initials, I am way into
Simon Xanadu right now.
BTW for all of you inthebox uberconservative namers - well I'm not
too after your approval, but if it helps you swallow it any, this is a
very important poem to me.
http://historyofideas.org/stc/Coleridge/poems/Kubla_Khan.html
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan / A stately pleasure-dome decree / Where Alph, the sacred river, ran / through caverns measureless to man / down to a sunless seaKickass!
Xanadu is not a real place, of course. Coleridge was just being kooky.
Also it is prn. ZAN-a-doo. Zannadoo.
Uh so yeah. I -
isn't
Simon great?
Simon Xanadu.
and
Rudolf Zimri and
Lucius Valentine. Wdyt. This is my "Gimmicky middle initial" themed fantasy sibset.
Also Xanadu as opposed to Tippins as a posting name. I have all these great ideas for posting names and always settle for
Octavia or Tippins because they are the most recognizable. But yeah thoughts appreciated
Also I am curious about if you guys have any wordthoughtnames like Xanadu that come from important poems/songs/whatever. I think that is very interesting.