Your Name as a Pun in the Title of Your Memoir
To pick up from the post two weeks ago, as promised I will share with you some autobiography titles that are puns. The idea is to think of your first or last name as if it’s just a word. Does it sound like any other word? If that doesn’t work, maybe your story focuses heavily on your profession and you can use that instead. An example is the memoir of singer Davy Jones, They Made a Monkee Out of Me.
Some names are easier than others. When Chris Lemmon wrote a biography of his father, actor Jack Lemmon, their shared last name served up all sorts of ideas. He could have selected “Lemmon Aid??? or “Lemmon Juice??? or something, but he chose A Twist of Lemmon. The 2009 autobiography of “Full House??? actress Jody Sweetin is titled Unsweetined: A Memoir, while actor David Hasselhoff drew from both his name and his nickname to publish Don’t Hassel the Hoff.
“M.A.S.H.??? actor Jamie Farr could have gone with the obvious and called his memoir something like “Going Too Farr,??? but instead he chose to make the pun on the word “for??? and titled it Just Farr Fun. Go figure. Probably my favorite pun title belongs to Hank Ketchum, the creator of Dennis the Menace, who named his autobiography Merchant of Dennis. Give it some thought. Maybe hidden in your name lies the potential to devise a catchy title for your life story
To pick up from the post two weeks ago, as promised I will share with you some autobiography titles that are puns. The idea is to think of your first or last name as if it’s just a word. Does it sound like any other word? If that doesn’t work, maybe your story focuses heavily on your profession and you can use that instead. An example is the memoir of singer Davy Jones, They Made a Monkee Out of Me.
Some names are easier than others. When Chris Lemmon wrote a biography of his father, actor Jack Lemmon, their shared last name served up all sorts of ideas. He could have selected “Lemmon Aid??? or “Lemmon Juice??? or something, but he chose A Twist of Lemmon. The 2009 autobiography of “Full House??? actress Jody Sweetin is titled Unsweetined: A Memoir, while actor David Hasselhoff drew from both his name and his nickname to publish Don’t Hassel the Hoff.
“M.A.S.H.??? actor Jamie Farr could have gone with the obvious and called his memoir something like “Going Too Farr,??? but instead he chose to make the pun on the word “for??? and titled it Just Farr Fun. Go figure. Probably my favorite pun title belongs to Hank Ketchum, the creator of Dennis the Menace, who named his autobiography Merchant of Dennis. Give it some thought. Maybe hidden in your name lies the potential to devise a catchy title for your life story that no one else is likely to have.
