Tangent: I obsess over names and the naming of people and things. Every stuffed animal I ever owned has had a name. My sock monkey slippers each have a name.* When I meet someone, I want to know their name and how it’s spelled so I can seal it into my memory. And when I write a story, I must name the characters. I agonize over it, and endure a very meticulous process until the perfect name is reached.
Sometimes, though, I’ll come across a name that I like so much that I have to create a character to fill it in, and one of those names… is Del. It’s a super name, deserving of a super characterization.
“Hats off to Larry” / Del Shannon (1961)
*Righty is Morris, Lefty is Mo – short for Maurice, but don’t call him that because it sounds “too French.”