Funny Names MARCH MADNESS begins: Swindly Lint, Dallas Ennema, Gladstone Dainty, Littice Bacon-Blood....

An antidote to March Madness (glandular freaks in underwear running back and forth on a basketball court) emerged today.

The "brackets" were announced for the "Funny Name of the Year."

In the "sane" world you're supposed to root for colleges you didn't attend, in towns you've never been to, because...why? You like the sound of Villanova? You have nothing better to do than join some idiotic office pool on whether Kentucky will defeat Baylor?

Villanova's got nothing on Dr. Wallop Promthong.

Ghenghis Muskox.

Zeke Faux or Beethoven Bong or Tuns van Peenen.

Being a plain ol' Smith (at least, that's the name grandfather got on Ellis Island), I've always been fascinated by strange names. Some 30 years ago, or more, an article was written on a guy who collected 3x5 cards on which he stored his finds. The piece was called "It all Started with Olney Nicewonger."

The hobby of name-collecting seemed ultimately legitimized when John Train published his illustrated "Remarkable Names" book series. He was sure, in his research, that these were birth names, and not pseudonyms.

I congratulated John Train on his fine work, and gave him a bit of trivia he didn't know: that Phil Ochs spent some of his last year using the name "John Train."

And yes, I did check if there's ever been someone actually named March Madness. The closest I could find, in a death index, were:

Yetta Medney, Mabel Mednis, Abel Mad and Lucy Mad Plume.