My parents named me Leroy because it means “The King” in French. This is funny because the most famous song about someone named Leroy is a Jim Croce song about a tough guy who is “meaner than a junkyard dog”. But there aren’t as many songs about men as there are about women. There’s “Gigantic” by Pixies, which is about someone named Paul, but there’s also “Hey Paula” by Paul and Paula. Three-syllable names are especially common: Eurythmics have at least three: “Belinda”, “Jennifer”, and “Julia”. I know four songs with “Valerie” in the title, by The Monkees, Steve Winwood, Quarterflash, and Material Issue. And they’re not all three syllables: There’s “Jolene” by Dolly Parton and at least two songs called “Victoria”. Billy Joel does list a bunch of men in “Piano Man”, so there’s that, and the only person named in a title on Elvis Costello’s compilation “Girls Girls Girls” is Oliver (three syllables still, but a man). There’s also “Mickey” by Toni Basil (plus “Ricky” by “Weird” Al). Elton John had early tracks with Daniel and Alice. But overall, there are seem to be more songs that name women than name men (and Billy Joel’s list is mirrored by the women listed in Lou Bega’s “Mambo No. 5”), although maybe part of my perception is because some of the songs about men, like Soft Cell’s “Martin” and Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy”, are really dark, while songs naming women are often love songs.
Back to my original point, though: My parents really did want me to feel special when they called me Leroy, and they named my brothers Duke and Earl. I’m not sure what they would have named a girl; maybe Princess, I suppose. Lorraine? That’s not really from the French word for queen, but it sounds close. There’s Regina, which doesn’t have a famous song but does have a particularly obnoxious character in the movie “Mean Girls”, so I guess that’s not great either. There’s also Thea, which goes with Theo, both of which mean “God”, but my parents are to Christian to be naming their children that way.
So Leroy it was, and when I was in Kindergarten the Jim Croce song was all over the radio and so that’s all I heard for most of elementary school, kids and even teachers humming that as I walked in the room. I came to hate that song, and I guess I came to resent my name because of it, but by the time I got to high school it had stopped because the world had moved on from Jim Croce, who had tragically moved on from the world years earlier.