Opinion: Is that with a y or an ie?

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There are lots of reasons people decide to change the name they were given at birth to something they find more palatable, or in the case of a politician, something with more gravitas. Could be Freddie Thompson just thought (or was told) Fred sounded more adult for someone with political ambitions, as our colleague Joe Mathews pointed out the other day. Or maybe he wanted to avoid confusion with another famous Hollywood Freddy.

But he’s not the only candidate to spurn his parents’ inclination and change the name they gave him. Johnny Reid Edwards shortened his name to the more jury-friendly John Edwards. And we have to wonder (but not too seriously or for too long) if another Democratic candidate was born Hillar Rodham and added the y to become Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Both Thompson and Edwards grew up within hailing distance of Appalachia, which made us curious about whether the informal tone of their given first names might be a regional tradition. Purely personal speculation for someone who spent most of the formative years in the northern reaches of Appalachia and recalls boyhood friends with ‘y’ sounds at the ends of their names, which they dropped as soon as they figured they had outgrown it. So we asked Chuck Watkins, founding director of the Appalachian Cultural Museum in Boone, N.C.:

True enough about class. Johnny Kerry? Mitty Romney? Um, no. And what about Rudolph Giuliani going with Rudy? A little reverse psychology there?

Ha! And you thought this campaign was all about the issues.

-- Scott Martelle