Names affect who we are, what we do, things said during sex

My name, as you can see, is Marty.

In the adult world, however, where my credit card, my… My name, as you can see, is Marty.

In the adult world, however, where my credit card, my driver’s liscense and my paychecks hold sway, I cease to be Marty.

I am Martin T. Flaherty IV, which means I was preceeded by three. In the minds of my relatives, there must be a fifth and, therefore, anything other than heterosexuality, marriage and enough sex to transmit a Y-chromosome would be considered a flaw.

When I was born, my father reputedly took his father aside. My grandfather asked what my name would be, to which my father replied, ?Kermit.? The joke was that, since my sisters were named Kelley and Keely, my father would stick with the Ks, rather than with the patriarchal lineage. My grandfather had never considered an option other than my being Martin the Fourth, and my father thought of any other option as a joke.

I was an expectation. I had been planned for and named years in advance, and I was destined to be the next link in a heritage.

If my mother had been unable to conceive after she had birthed my sisters, would the line have ended there, or would my father have sought another wife? If I had been born earlier, before my two sisters, would my parents have continued having children?

I don’t ask these questions because I expect to ever find an answer; I ask them because I wish I knew how much my father’s name influenced the decisions he made. From this, I might learn how much influence my name could have over the choices I make.

I knew, by the time I was five, that the Flaherty side of my family was expecting Martin the Fifth. There is surely motivation to live up to these expectations.

But I am clearly not always Martin ‘ partly because Martin is not a name that women want to call out during sex ‘ so I go by Marty.

“Marty” was also the title of an Oscar-winnng film starring Ernest Borgnine, not to mention the name of the hero in “Back to the Future.” None of my grade-school classmates were familiar with the former, but I was long referred to as “McFly.”

But more frequently, I was Marty as in, “Marty Farty had a party/ everyone was there/ Tutti Frutti laid a beauty/ they all went out for air.”

Somehow, this managed to remain clever, at least in the minds of my tormentors, for several years.

I’ve always wondered whether this name-based ridicule was a cause or merely a method. Did my name, simply through rhyming with another word, merit derision’ Or did my peers dislike me, and choose to express this in the most readily available medium?

I choose to believe the latter because I like to believe that, later, when I was called “Smarty,” it was because my intelligence merited it, not merely because it rhymed with my name. This compliment more than offset the various insults that came attached to my name. After all, name jokes are something that happen to almost everybody.

At home, I have an altogether different name.

My dog’s name is Gentry. My aunt’s name is Joyce. Along with my name and my sisters’ names, these make up the naming conventions that my mother has had for years. When I go home, my mom addresses me as GentryKeelyMarty, without pauses between names. My sisters are JoyceKeelyKelley and MartyKelleyKeely. This is not deliberate or consistent, but the general rule is that we wait until the third name to determine whom she’s talking to.

I can’t say why this happens, but the “why” of it doesn’t particularly matter. The important thing is that my mother fails to get my name right on the first try.

I should probably get upset at this but I don’t, if for no other reason than the fact that it might be genetic. I once called a friend, got her answering machine, and began my message, “Hey Marty, it’s Kate.” She thought it was cute and played it at parties.

Yet when I do it during sex, it’s not cute, it’s narcissistic. Apparently.

Marty Flaherty, Martin Flaherty IV and GentryKeelyMarty can be reached at mflaherty@pittnews.com.M