NAMES

‘I have destroyed over 1000 of the undead. I have helped hundreds of survivors. I have fortified a city and helped to rebuild civilisation. I shall go down in history as a savior of mankind. For I am Cyril Leopold Catherine Twitterbumfrog III.’

Names are a funny old thing. We don’t choose them, but we are stuck with them for our entire life and have to make the best of them. Very rarely do people make the effort to go and change their name – we all prefer to honour our parents’ decision and stick with the moniker we’ve been blessed with.

The problem with names, though, is that they encourage us to form preconceptions about people before we’ve even met them. Take this example. You have heard of a team of survivors across town who have a large supply of weapons that they are willing to share with other survivors. All you have to do is head down to the old cinema complex, knock on the back fire exit and ask for their leader, Tarquin.

Now, it’s quite possible that Tarquin is a strapping seven-foot ex-wrestler who is built like the proverbial brick toilet block, but that doesn’t stop you imagining him sitting on a chaise draped in chiffon, listening to Noël Coward music playing on an old gramophone whilst sipping herbal tea – purely because he has the name Tarquin. Likewise, if the leader of this team was a woman named Shaz, most people would assume that this Shaz was unlikely to be a middle-aged woman who enjoyed knitting and the books of Agatha Christie, and was much more likely to have an affinity for tracksuits and White Lightning.

Names can also instil confidence in people. When it comes to crunch time, would you be more liable to vote for a man called Walter Shufflebottom to lead your team to glory on the battlefield against the undead or are you going to choose the chap who happens to be called Jack Power? With this in mind, you need to take a moment to assess your own name. Is it the kind of name that a leader would have? Is it the kind of name that will encourage men and women to follow you blindly into battle and trust your every decision? Is it a name that fits comfortably in front of the title ‘Destroyer of Zombies’? If not, then as soon as the apocalypse begins you need to change it. (Don’t bother changing it now. It will require you to do all kinds of pointless paperwork in order to get your bank accounts, bills, passports etc. in order. Time that could be better spent training. When the apocalypse comes you won’t need to worry about the legal aspect of changing your name. As there won’t be much law, you can just do it.)

The rule of thumb when picking a new name is that it needs to be short (this will make it quick and easy for your teammates to call out warnings to you); it needs to be memorable (so that people will be able to pass stories on about your prowess in battle); and it can’t be too self-indulgent. Brad ‘High Lord of the Urban Zones, Killer of a Thousand Brains and Destroyer of the Undead’ may seem like a cool name now but when the apocalypse is finally over you’ll find it a bugger when you have to start filling in job applications and writing cheques.