T - 22: A Real Donnybrook

Apparently I rubbed my father the wrong way with yesterday's post. When I spoke to him this morning, I expected him to be pleased that I had taken the time to type his poem about me into the blog. Instead I heard, "I've got a bone to pick with you."

As so often happens, the bone my Dad was picking had to do with one of my wise-ass comments. This time it was when I said I hoped any friends reading his poem wouldn't start calling me Donny. Of course, childhood nicknames tend to linger on in families, much like the stories of some screw-up you made when you were five or six years old. So, for 60 years I have been Donny to my family, just as my brother remains Bobby to all of us. I am not completely without guilt here, as my son Benjy - excuse me, Ben - will verify.

In some ways I envy Linda. Her dad occasionally called her Linnie, but it never stuck and there just aren't that many nicknames you can make from it after that. And her sister is bulletproof. I mean, what is the childhood nickname for Sandy?

There will be no arguing with my father that Donny isn't really a grown-up name. "I went on the web and looked up famous people named Donny," he told me. "There were more than 9,000 of them!"

I am not sure what web he was using, but his claim led me to explore the amazing record of Donnies throughout history.

The first thing I discovered is that there is indeed a www.donny.com. And yes, it belongs to none other than Donny Osmund, he of the magnificent smile and wrinkle-free face in the picture above. On this site you can buy a book commemorating the 50th anniversary tour of the Osmonds, you can check out photos of Donny, and best of all you can watch videos of Donny.

My favorite is the "Airplane Pillow Fight" which is described as "the famous pillow fight during the flight home from the Oprah show. See the entire Osmond family join in a sea of pillows as part of the fun time that took place." You can watch it for yourself here. If you are anything like me, you will curse fate that there was not an armed sky marshal aboard the flight.

Thinking of Donny Osmond made me think of Donny Hathaway, the great soul singer who died so young so many years ago. Thinking of him made me think of Donny -- well, actually, I couldn't think of any more of the remaining 8,998 famous Donnies. So back to the web I went.

Google eventually found the TV character Donny Crane, the son of the legendary Denny Crane. And if fictional characters are OK, let's accept the variant spelling and include Donnie Darko. But it was pretty slim pickings. They did find Donny Wahlberg, but I must protest that we are stretching the boundaries of famous people at this stage.

I asked Ask.com for "famous people named Donny" and got a list of other topics, including "Famous People with Anxiety" and "Famous People who have had mental and/or emotional illnesses". I am not sure why they came up, but it does make me anxious.

Ask.com also suggested going to nameplayground.com where I found that Donny entered the Top 1,000 names for boys in 1937 and was last on the list in 1990. Its highest rank was #376 in 1976, fuelled I suspect by people watching Donny Osmond and his sister on their TV show.

No, I strongly suspect there are not 9,000 famous people called Donny. Think about it. Can you really see Donald Rumsfeld called Donny? Donny Sutherland? Donny Bradman? Donny Trump? It's hard to think of them as Donnies, isn't it?

Well, actually, if you knew their parents you probably wouldn't think so.