Today is Ed Balls day! Are you excited? You should be! Today we wear our Ed Balls hats and eat our Ed Balls foods and celebrate the fact that there is actually a politician, quite high the UK Labor Party, named Ed Balls. So high up that one day Britain may have a Prime Minister named, ahem, “Mr. Balls.”

Ed Balls climbed to fame this day five years ago when he went to google his own name and typed it into Twitter instead, sending out this infamous tweet:

Ed Balls

— Ed Balls (@edballs) April 28, 2011

Thus, the celebrations of millions began, because the only thing the internet loves more than cats is someone being a total moron, with an innuendo on the side.

That’s not just confined to the internet, though. No one ever really grows up in regards to these things, I think; we just get better at pretending not to be amused around those under fifteen years of age. Case in point, when I was studying abroad in Japan at age nineteen and my parents came to visit, we walked around looking at what they wanted for dinner.

My mother pointed to a takoyaki stall and asked what they were, to which I gave the simplest translation: balls of octopus encased in dough and deep fried.

Only after I finished the entire sentence did I notice my parents had broken into hysterical laughter. When I demanded to know what was funny, my mother could only wheeze out “octopus balls” before descending into teary-eyed giggles again.

This from the woman who spent my entire childhood forbidding the words “fart” and “butt,” insisting that they were rude and not to be used under any circumstances. And they weren’t funny.

Apparently the truth is that they are hilarious words and my mother had banned them because they make her giggle. After all, how can you teach a four-year-old not to talk about farting when you can’t stop laughing? All this I learned that fateful night over a bottle of sake in the first time I got drunk with my parents.

Which brings us back to Ed Balls. Really, this holiday would only get better if the poor man was named Richard Headman. Or, as a man my husband actually knows is: Peter Weiner.

This topic came up last night, as there is to be a new child joining the family on my husband’s side, and we are eagerly awaiting news whilst speculating on names.

There are a lot of really terrible names in this world, and I’m not just talking about Klaytyn and Myrrindah (real spellings). People get down on Neveah, but I’d rather be heaven backwards than something un-spellable like Siobhan. And don’t get me started on traditional Welsh names like Ieuan, aka John.

Or Gaylord. Or Chastity. Or that old Pilgrim favorite, Flee Fornication.

I did rather like my dad’s suggestion of having two boys, calling them Siegfried and Sigmund, and giving them both Sig Saur’s for their birthdays. And then I remembered that I’m not a member of the Russian mafia and stopped that line of thinking.

Of course, my relatives could just call their child Ed Balls in honor of Ed Balls day. It would be timely, appropriate, and have the rich history of the British Empire behind it.

Not to mention twenty years ahead of having this child’s head dunked in a toilet, because that’s what happens when your name is Ed Balls, probably. A name that is only the second to being nicknamed “toilet-breath.”

So, what’s the worst name you’ve ever heard in real life? What’s the worst you can come up with? Writers, did you ever name a character something only to have a horrible realization later? Readers, ever read one only to go “oh no you didn’t oh yes you did oh god” later? Make us laugh in the comments below!

Or if you enjoyed this post, try Smartphones Are For Idiots Like Us. Because they are.

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In honor of Ed Balls Day, I’m not having a sale, but by god if you buy a copy of my book and tell me I’ll tweet your name to high heavens and above. Got a new review today calling What Boys Are Made Of  “gritty and haunting,” describing the setting as one where “…[t]he wrong decision can get you branded. The right one can get you killed.”

Or, as my mother puts it, “I have to read it in small bits or I get really anxious because I’m so invested in the characters.” A triumph, basically.  You can buy it here to find out what all the anxiety is about! Only $2.99 (£2.08) to find out how many characters I named after that illustrious politician.

(Hint: None. But it is a badass book of suspense with murder and cartels and fights and the realization of survival with no good choices. So read it!)

Thanks for reading, and eat some round foods in honor of Ed Balls Day!

[Photo credit to JerzyGorecki and Romi on Pixabay, in public domain.]