What's In A Name?

Tony Blair has often been seen by Scots as not being quite Scottish enough. On the other hand, the English see him as being some kind of Scot, being educated at Fettes. However, he's not quite a Blair either! His father was born Leo Parsons to a travelling circus family (do we remember the other Prime Minister with a trapeeze artist father?). So if there had been no name change we would have had TONY PARSONS as Prime Minister. Sounds a bit more Labour-like in my opinion. We could have had constant confusion with Tony Parsons the author. So Leo probably did us a favour by being adopted into the Blair family as he was. And seeing as Charles is a familial name we could have had CHARLIE PARSONS as Prime Minister.

Many actors change their names for effect. Three prominent politicians have been raised with names their father or grandfather didn't have. John Major's family was originally called BALL and Bill Clinton's father was a William BLYTHE. So we missed out on Bill Blythe, Johnny Ball, and Tony Parsons! How sad!

Posted in: Bill Clinton,Blair,John Major