Dear Warner Brothers:

Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making a picture, I had no idea that the City of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers.

However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received a long, ominous legal document, warning us not to use the name "Casablanca".

It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, the great-great grandfather of Harry and Jack, while looking for a short cut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock, which he later turned in for a hundred shares of common, named it Casablanca.

I just don't understand your attitude. Even if they plan on re-releasing the picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don't know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.

You claim you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without their permission. What about Warner Brothers -- do you own that, too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were. When Vitaphone was still a gleam in the inventor's eye, we were touring the sticks as the Marx Brothers and even before us, there had been other brothers -- the Smith Brothers; the Brothers Karamazoff; Dan Brouthers, an outfielder with Detroit; and "Brother, can you spare a dime?" This was originally "Brothers, can you spare a dime" but this was spreading a dime pretty thin so they threw out one brother, gave all the money to the other brother and whittled it down to "Brother, can you spare a dime?"

The younger Warner Brother calls himself Jack. Does he claim that, too? It's not an original name -- it was used long before he was born. Offhand, I can think of two Jacks -- there was Jack of "Jack and the Beanstalk", and Jack, the Ripper, who cut quite a figure in his day. As for Harry, the older brother, he probably signs his checks, sure in the belief that he is the first Harry of all time and that all other Harrys are impostors. Offhand, I can think of two Harrys that preceded him. There was Lighthorse Harry of Revolutionary fame and a Harry Appelbaum who lived on the corner of Ninety-third Street and Lexington Avenue. Appelbaum wasn't very well known -- I've almost forgotten what he looked like -- the last I heard of him, he was selling neckties at Weber and Heilbroner; but I'll never forget his mother, she made the best apple strudle in Yorkville.

We now come to the Burbank studio. This is what the Warner Brothers call their place. Old man Burbank is gone. Perhaps you remember him -- he was a great man in a garden, he was the wizard who crossed all those fruits and vegetables until he had the poor plants in such a confused and nervous state, that they never were sure whether they were supposed to come in on the meat platter or the dessert dish.

This is just conjecture, of course, but, who knows -- perhaps Burbank survivors aren't too happy over the fact that a plant that grinds out pictures settled in their town, appropriated Burbank's name and uses it as a front for their films.

It is even possible that the Burbank family is prouder of the potato produced by the old man than they are of the fact that from this town emerged "Casablanca" or even "Gold Diggers of 1931".

This all seems to add up to a pretty bitter tirade but I don't mean it to. I love Warners -- some of my best friends are Warner Brothers. It is even possible that I am doing them an injustice and that they themselves know nothing at all about this dog-in-the-Wanger attitude. It wouldn't surprise me at all to discover that the heads of Warners' legal department know nothing about this dispute for I am acquainted with many of them and they are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits and a love of their fellow man that out-Saroyans "Dr. Gillespie". I have a hunch that his attempt to prevent us from using the title is the scheme of some ferret-faced shyster serving an apprenticeship in their legal department. I know the type -- hot out of law school, hungry for success and too ambitious to follow the natural laws of promotion, this bar sinister probably needled Warners' attorneys, most of whom are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits, etc., in attempting to enjoin us.

Well, he won't get away with it! We'll fight him to the highest court! No pasty-faced legal adventurer is going to cause bad blood between the Warners and the Marxes. We are all brothers under the skin and we'll remain friends till the last reel of "A Night in Casablanca" goes tumbling over the spool.
Sincerely, Groucho

Somewhere on the US Census site are two files. One is all the lat names from the census the other is all the first names.

I have the ones from (I think) the 1990 census saved somewhere as text files. If all else fails, pulling random entries out of them will give a name.

And if you go far enough back (less than 100 years), you can get actual names along with the info from the census forms. That's more useful for historical fiction, but...

Finally, I seem to recall that there's an application on the census site that will tell you how common various first names were in various censuses. Might be one for last names as well, but I remember messing with the first names one.

I actually got pointed at that app by someone on a TG list. They suggested using it to avoid choosing a named that was too uncommon at the time you were born when you go for a name change.

i don't know about dickens. maybe wackford squeers didn't seem that strange when nicholas nickleby was first published, but i found it a very distracting name when i read it.

i get my villains from my past. i knew a czech kid named josef blaha when i was at school in the uk, and he was a mean, evil sonofabitch, with a creepy crawly psyche. hence the psychiatrist in 'wild horses'.

unsurprisingly, i get my heroes and heroines from men and women i've admired.

and i too would have found jackson browne a bit out there.

becky