Names can make a difference in I have a strongly held belief that people grow up to become what they are named. You just know that a guy named Reginald Winfield III is not going to be a homeless beggar. He’ll more likely turn out to be an investment banker or a Congressman beggar.

I, on the other hand, have been cursed by a bad name from the day I was born. Did you know that the most prevalent name amongst mass murderers is Lee? It’s no wonder I’m always disappointing myself. If only I had a decent name. Of course, I blame my parents for my lack of achievement in life. I understand why they named my older brother John, one of the best names in the English language. Our father was named John as were his dad and his granddad. But how do you switch from giving him such a good name to naming me Leland Warren Pitts? Goodness gracious, I had two strikes against me before my first bowel movement. Thanks a lot mom and dad.

I’ll never know why my parents double cursed me with two names that were last heard in the 1800s, and even then they weren’t all that popular. These days your name is your brand and it’s all about marketing and in business your good name is your most valuable asset. Do you think Baxter Black and Waddie Mitchell would have become great cowboy poets if instead their names had been Hieronyous or Grayson Monet? John Wayne knew he’d never amount to much if he kept his real name, which was Marion, which comes close to almost being as bad as Leland. I often wonder how many more books I could have sold as a Cody, Rope, Stetson, Ty or Clint, great cowboy names one and all.

I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t name me Harry with a middle name of Arm so I could have gone through life with a nickname of “Stinky.” I think my very first words were, “Please call me Lee.” But that was before I realized that Lee could also be used as a girl’s name. Now you know why I’m a big promoter of the idea that a kid should be able to change his name when entering kindergarten. Personally, I’ve always seen myself as a “Tom Roberts” kind of guy and if that was my name I’m quite sure I’d have won a Pulitzer and owned a ranch the size of Delaware by now.

Speaking of Pulitzer’s, I read a lot and one of my favorite writers is John Sandford who came up with an interesting system of name calling that I fully endorse. Because one father lived and breathed fishing he named his children after outboard motors, so he ended up with two sons named Mercury Johnson and Johnson Johnson. His daughter Evie was named after Evinrude. I think we should take a page from Sandford’s book and farmers should name their children after tractors, for example John Deere, Alice Chalmers, Massey Ferguson and Oliver Oliver. If you’re a Caterpillar family instead you could name your daughter Kitty Cat, although that name strikes me more as a female engaged in the adult entertainment industry. Kids in a trucker’s family with the right last name could be Ken Worth, Peter Built, or Otto Carr.

The animal industries offer up a plethora of possible names that a good marketing plan could be built around. Can you imagine the name recognition of a red headed purebred breeder whose name was Red Angus? And there are other breed names that would make good people monikers. Brahma is an excellent name for a future PRCA cowboy and if a ranch couple had twins, they could name them Angus and Brangus. Charolais sounds like a lovely girl’s name and if a daughter already had the last name of Ford you could name her “Her” and the Hereford Association would put Her in their Hall of Fame.

Writers and actors often change their names and I should have changed mine a long time ago. Heck, John Sandford isn’t really his name either, although I think he has a great real name which is John Roswell Camp. I guarantee that if his name had been Leland Warren Pitts, he’d still be writing obituaries for some small-town newspaper instead of having written over 50 books.