Ulysses S. Grant, our 18th president, entered the earthly stage as Hiram Ulysses Grant. When his name was mistakenly entered on the West Point register as Ulysses Simpson Grant, he eagerly embraced the error because he detested the initials H.U.G. and loved having the initials U.S., as in “United States,” “Uncle Sam,” and “Unconditional Surrender.”
Try your hand and mind at a short quiz about presidential names. Using each nickname listed, identify each American president. Answers appear at the end of this column.
Anybody can ascend to the presidency of the United States. Jefferson did it, Nixon did it, and Truman did it. So any Tom, Dick, and Harry can become president!
What is the most popular first name among presidents? The answer isn’t Tom, Dick, or Harry. It’s James. Six presidents share that first name — Madison, Monroe, Polk, Buchanan, Garfield, and Carter. Tied for second place are William with four — Harrison, McKinley, Taft, and Clinton — and John with four — Adams, Quincy Adams, Tyler, and Kennedy. Massachusetts is the birth state of three presidents named John — John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and John F. Kennedy.
Despite 14 presidents with the first names James, John, and William, 24 of our chief executives, starting with Thomas Jefferson and ending with Donald Trump, have first names not shared by any other POTUS.
“H” is the most popular first letter of presidential last names — Harrison, Hayes, Harrison, Harding, and Hoover. “S” is the most common letter that begins English words, but not a single president’s surname starts with “S.”
Five pairs of presidents have shared the same last name — Adams, Harrison, Johnson, Roosevelt, and Bush. Only the Johnsons were not related to each other.
Two of our presidents have middle names that match the last names of one of their predecessors — Ronald Wilson Reagan and Willaim Jefferson Clinton.
Pierce, Grant, Ford, Carter, Bush, Bush, Hoover (in Britain), and Trump are all common words when uncapitalized.
Five presidential last names consist of four letters. In chronological order they are Polk, Taft, Ford, Bush, and Bush. George W. Bush is the only one among them to have served two terms.
Dwight Eisenhower is the only American president with a four-syllable surname.
Theodore Roosevelt was our first president to be known by his initials, TR. Following in that tradition have been FDR, JFK, and LBJ.
Four 20th-century presidents have sported first and last names beginning with the same letter (alliteration) — Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Ronald Reagan.
Nine presidents with double letters in one of their names served sequentially — William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman. Five of these names include a double “o.”
John Quincy Adams is the only president whose name contains a letter that is found in no other president’s name. That letter is “q.”
Answers
nicknames: 1. Abraham Lincoln 2. Andrew Jackson 3. George Washington 4. Thomas Jefferson 5. Dwight Eisenhower 6. John Fitzgerald Kennedy 7. Richard Nixon 8. Calvin Coolidge 9. William Henry Harrison 10. Zachary Taylor 11, Ronald Reagan 12, Franklin Roosevelt 13. Theodore Roosevelt 14, William Howard Taft 15. James Buchanan
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In eight days, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chief will clash in Super Bowl LIX. The Eagles employ an almost unstoppable play that involves teammates pushing their quarterback on his butt to help propel him over the goal line. The maneuver has acquired two clever nicknames — “the tush push” and “the brotherly shove” (because Philadelphia is “The City of Brotherly Love.”
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On Thursday, February 6, 11 am, at the Rancho Santa Fe Library, 7040 Avenida de Acacias, I’ll be performing “Fascinating Facts About Our Presidents.”
On Wednesday, February 12, 10 am, at Rancho Bernardo Oasis. I’ll be offering “It’s a Punderful Life.”
Welcome to the website woven for wordaholics, logolepts, and verbivores. Carnivores eat meat; herbivores eat plants and vegetables; verbivores devour words. If you are heels over head (as well as head over heels) in love with words, tarry here a while to graze or, perhaps, feast on the English language. Ours is the only language in which you drive in a parkway and park in a driveway and your nose can run and your feet can smell.