ONE day, in yet another idle moment, I fell to speculating on what the outcome might have been if history had played strange tricks and certain unlikely matrimonial unions been forged. What, I wondered, might the descendants family names have been? This was the result... IF Chewbacca of Star Wars had married Julie Andrews would their descendants be called Hairy-Poppins? IF the family of sexologist Shere Hite had been descended from novelist Emily Bronte would they have been the Wuthering-Hites? IF Roseanne Barr had been descended from Captain William Bligh would she have been a Bounty-Barr? Or if she had been of very mixed ancestry, would she be a Cocktail-Barr? IF sci-fi writer H. G. Wells had married into the family of the composer Handel might their descendants be called Wells Largo? IF Patty Hearst had married British actor Peter Sellers, would their descendants have been Newspaper-Sellers? IF Bo Derek had been descended from a certain celebrated 17th-century diarist called Samuel, would she have been born as Little Bo Pepys? IF Jane Fonda had married Welsh singer Tom Jones, would their descendants be called Rhondda-Fonda? IF Jack Lemmon had married a stripper, would their descendants be known as Lemmon-Peel? IF Batman married Goldie Hawn, would their descendants be known as Cape-Hawn? IF Madonna had married Freddie Mercury, would their descendants have been Virgin-Queens? IF Glenn Close had been descended from King Camp Gillette (inventor of the safety razor) would she have been a Close-Shave? IF Michael Jackson had wed Phyllis Diller would their descendants take the name of Thriller-Diller? IF Oscar Wilde had married a member of the Kellogg family, would their descendants have been Wilde-Oats? IF Oprah Winfrey had been an impoverished descendant of composer Kurt Weill, would she have been known as The Threepenny Oprah? IF composers Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt had had children who married each other and anglicised their name, presumably their descendants would now be Shopping-Lists. IF the descendants of Martin Luther had intermarried with those of the man who invented the bath sponge, would the family name now be Martin Loofah? IF Alexander Graham Bell had married a woman who was free with her favours, would their descendants have been Liberty-Bells? IF Hilary Clinton divorced Bill and married Sean Penn, would their descendants be Penn-Pushers? IF Sonny Bono had married Yoko Ono, would their descendants change their name by deed poll to Smith, rather than be known as Bono-Ono??? French historical heroine Joan of Arc left no descendants, but if she had had lots of lovers would they have been known as The Riders Of The Last Arc? And, finally, if Lois Lane is so dumb that its taken her all these years to recognise that Superman is Clark Kent without his glasses, how did she ever manage to find anything that enabled them to have descendants? (Copyright R. Stockdill 1999) Roy Stockdill Editor, The Journal of One-Name Studies The Stockdill Family History Society (Guild of One-Name Studies, FedFHS) STOCKDILL PREST YELLOW BOLTON WORSNOP GIBSON MIDGLEY BRACEWELL SHACKLETON BRADLEY MOODY in Yorkshire North & West Ridings MEAD YOUNG in Somerset, Wiltshire & Gloucestershire Web page of the Stockdill Family History Society:- http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roystock Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does he will tell you. If he does not, why humiliate him?" - Canon Sydney Smith (scholar and humorist 1771-1845)