The Name of the Day...

...belongs to Sacvan Bercovitch, a professor of American studies who died at age 81. When I first saw that name I thought, Sac-van what? According to his obit in the Times:

He was born on Oct. 4, 1933, into a Yiddish-speaking left-wing family in a Jewish ghetto in Montreal. His first name is a combination of Sacco and Vanzetti, two anarchists who many thought had been wrongly executed in 1927 for murder and armed robbery.

Imagine being so passionate about something that you would saddle your kid with a name like "Sacvan" for the rest of his life!

"Gee, Ma, couldn't you have just named me after Uncle Joe?"