Bertha Venation: And Hundreds of Other Funny Names of Real People

by Larry Ashmead

An ideal gift book with personality and charm, Bertha Venation is a legendary editor's lifetime collection of the amazing names of actual people, with his own inimitable wit, commentary, and stories. Roger Gotobed . . . Ida Slaptor . . . Formica Dinette . . . Honeysuckle Weeks . . . Gay Beach . . . Sappho Clissit . . . Dimple Mystery This colorful collection of extraordinary names, sure to please every lover of miscellany, Celebrity Children, Weirdest Names in Sports, Aptly Named Professionals, Literary Highlights, Funny Name Marriages, Places and Houses with Strange Names, Long and Meaningless Names, and Pets. Barbara Fatt Heine . . . P. Enis . . . Razzle and Dazzle . . . Moondog . . . Casa Enima . . . Phydeaux . . . Phat Ho . . . Fitz Funfrock . . . Mone't Elysea Ann . . . and Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Language

176 pages, Hardcover

First published October 16, 2007

Reviews

[David]

I hope that Larry Ashmead puts more effort into his job as an editor than he bothered to put into this disappointing, totally shameless excuse for a book.

Here is page 2, almost in its entirety:

here's a recent list of babies born in Upstate New York.

Caiden Lee
Tyler Ryan
carly Morgan
Jeremiah James Jr.
Sarafia Frances
Brianna Darcie
Hayles Tasha
Sabryn Maura
Bethanyann Busta
Kai Nolan
Autumn Elizabeth
Ashlwyn Zoe
Trinity Jade

Bette Harrison, who keeps an eye on new arrivals at O' Grady Hospital in Atlanta, spotted Vaseline Glass.

If you find this kind of thing riveting, then you'll enjoy this book.

Ashmead has to be one of the laziest writers on the planet. Incredibly, he stoops to the same device again on page 9 of the book, which consists entirely of names given to babies "born in Upstate New York". Most of the names listed are unremarkable in a multicultural society, leaving one with the distinct impression, not dispelled anywhere else in the book, that Ashmead is inviting us to join him in finding such names as 'Nayraha Dmarye, Tajae Nylei, Nyeerah Oqay-lyn, Kobe, Anief, and Kody Ryan' - well, what exactly? Insufficiently WASP-y? Too foreign? Hard to be sure, since he just lists them without comment and moves on.

NEWSFLASH: The phone directory is a veritable treasure trove of names, and it's free.

But then this is an author so self-absorbed that he devotes nearly two pages of the book's introduction to the fact that his employee badge misspelled his name on his first job. Fear not - his next employers managed to get it right. Hilariously, the moron provides pictures of both ID badges, presumably to eliminate any further worries you might have on the matter.

Ashmead's shamelessness doesn't stop at reproducing lists of names gleaned from birth announcements. Fully six pages of the chapter devoted to pets' names are a verbatim reproduction of a (not particularly interesting) newspaper article about Queen Victoria and her dogs. Then there are the interminably meandering, pointless anecdotes from, or about, various acquaintances of his. Introductions like this one are typical: "Mary Tobin Adams Hedges was a dear friend in the late 1960s and '70s when I owned a beach house in Sagaponack, a small town in the Hamptons."

I have my own name for lazy, shameless authors who produce books as appallingly dreadful as "Bertha Venation":

Larry Ashmead is a complete and utter ASSMARMOT

[Eva-Marie Nevarez]

Oh man. I was kind of hoping this would be hilarious but if the reviews are telling the truth - and I think they just may be - it's going to be a real disappointment. Luckily I only paid 50 cents for it at Goodwill. :)
I'm going to start glancing trough it today since it's not an actual story and won't take long to finish. Plus, if it sucks as bad as these reviewers say I want it out of here asap.


And guess what all? Oh God I feel bad saying this because the author truly comes off like such a nice guy... But this is like trudging through mud. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to at the very least chuckle once or twice. I'm not hard to please.
These are... I don't know what they are actually. They're nothing. They're names that if the average person saw them, the wouldn't spend over one half of a second thinking about, if that.
My last name is Leger. If you pronounce it wrong you can hear 'leg' in there. That would floor Ashmead.
Which, by the way, reminds me of Ashmead finding it humorous that his last name *sort of* sounds like Assmead.
I just want this out. If anyone knows of a book that actually accomplishes what Ashmead set out to do let me know... I just want this far away from me.
I had to work to get through it and at 152 very short pages with basically consist of lists of names, that's saying something.
Here: I've saved you the money it costs to buy this book:

Barbara Fatt Heinie
Lester Cockburn
Phat Ho
Sheila Dikshit
Sur Render (this wasa banker and Ashmead just couldn't get over it.)
Patty O'Furniture
Ida Slapter
Iona Trailer
Jonny Kool
John Raymond Gonzo
Dr. Wizwell (urologist - the ones who have careers that can be implemented into the "joke" are favs of the authors.)
Googoosh
Wong Wee Hoo
Rich Guy
Preetinder S. Bharara
Rachel Coffey married a Mr. Bean and became Rachel Coffey-Bean. Isn't that a frigging hoot.

Marriages: Cockman-Dickman
Mustard-Pickels
Filler-Quick
Kuntz-Dick
Aiken-Johnson
Gowen-Geter

Give me a break.

Vermester Bester.
Velvet Satin Cotten.

Want me to stop? Need me to stop? No. I had to live through it, so do you.

Isaac Praise-God Barebone (who should have something done to him, not sure what, for being so damn dumb) named his son Hath Christ Not Died For Thee Thou Wouldst Be Damned Barebone. The son changed his name to Nicholas. Unbelievable - why would he do that?!
IMO, parents who do some stupid shit like that should be charged with abuse. And I am deadly serious folks.
Okay, no more. It's giving me a headache just paging through the book. Oh, those names were just taken off random pages. The pages of full of them. I know people with funny names too. Besides my own I know a Cox, AND a Kuntz. Go figure huh? I know a Lawless!! Aw, shit! I could come up with more but I'm not in the mood. Flipping through this just pissed me off and I don't want to look at any book right now. I should take it back to Goodwill and demand my 50 cents back.

[Gabrielle]

I picked up this book because it sounded so cool but I was just genuinely disappointed???

There really wasn't anything to it? It was just kind of a collection of different names and a rating of their strangeness?

I genuinely wanted to laugh at this book. I wanted to think it was funny, because the premise itself sounds genuinely hilarious!

And yet, I just couldn't. It definitely did have its moments! Just not as many as I thought I would when I originally picked it up.
SUBSCRIBE TO MY BOOKTUBE CHANNEL: youtube.com/c/Frumious

[Tara]

Not funny and really pretty racist. The only semi good thing about this book is the cover.
-25 stars
DNF

[Wiseman]

So interesting! I couldn't help but laugh out loud at some of these names!

[D'Anne]

I picked this book up from the library because the title made me laugh out loud. Unfortunately the rest of the book isn't so funny. Sure there are plenty of funny names mentioned, but to get to them one must also endure the ramblings of Larry Ashmead, who isn't all that interesting. I never did get to the part about the origins of the name the book uses as its title, but I did read several anecdotes about Ashmead's mother and his friends in the publishing world. My guess is that people who already know and love this guy will dig this book. But Bertha Venation is the perfect example of a book that would really do much better online as a blog. If you're interested in funny names, you're better off checking out Baby's Named A Bad Bad Thing online (http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/ba...).

[Beth]

Totally disappointed. I was so excited to read this, but it was actually kinda boring. Plus, Ashmead kept adding in stories that had NOTHING to do with anything - for example, what the heck was the Alec Guinness story doing in there?! It was about how the great actor told some kid not to depend so much on Star Wars- and had nothing to do with funny names! Here's hoping any future books will be better.

[Karen (Living Unabridged)]

So much material for humor, but grows sadly tedious.