Names, Names, Names!

What must it be like to go through with a name that, in one way or another, isn't really yours? These ladies know. Let's meet them:

Imagine how tired of boat jokes and having people sing snatches of West Side Story at her Natalie Wood must be...

While Kay Francis must be deeply irked that her once-forgotten namesake has had something of a comeback these last couple of years.

It must be bad enough to carry these monikers after the fact; poor women's basketball star Joan Crawford was more or less contemporaneous with her nemesis.

As for Joan Bennett, I bet she gets crank phone calls every time Dark Shadows turns up in the reruns.

Jane Greer's parents probably thought they were doing something very clever, while she herself must be happy that her noir original is fairly out of fashion these days.

It must be depressing to be a perfectly presentable person burdened, like Elizabeth Taylor, with a name that, to say the least, raises expectations.

As for Deborah Kerr here, I wonder if she ever dances around her living room pretending to be wearing a huge crinoline.

And Betty White must be just about counting the days until she's delivered from the late in life recrudescence of the Betty White.

What finding these women did for me was make me realize just how remarkable the originals are. These women - church secretaries, real-estate agents, middle-managers - all seem perfectly nice, but given the names they're been handed, they're living examplars of (the real) Joan Crawford's adage: "If you want to see the girl next door, go next door!"