What's in a name

Crazily-hazily
John Allen Muhammad
Another psychopath
Playing his games.

Crimes aside, in matters
Nomenclatorial
Why do these murderers
All have three names?

While I’m not actually suggesting that Muhammad intended his actions as games, the “games” in question refer both to Muhammad’s crimes and to his courtroom antics during his latest trial. The Beltway sniper attacks had a violent video-game feel to them, and Muhammad’s turn as his own attorney was apparently punctuated by outbursts in which he quoted Mark Twain and Groucho Marx.

In writing this entry, I definitely bumped up against a major limitation of this form. I picked the subject quickly, but struggled with the angle. Everything seemed just a little too tasteless. So I went with a relatively unimportant element of Muhammad’s story—his name. I have wondered more than once whether Muhammad (and his then-teenage protégé/accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo) actually went by all three names, or whether this was a media thing. While there are numerous exceptions (e.g., Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy), infamous personalities are frequently referenced with middle name included, regardless of whether that is how they self-identify*. While I suppose it’s helpful to all the other John Gacys out there that the serial killer is always John Wayne* Gacy, it does seem strange


* “American Taliban” John Walker Lindh did not use the surname, Lindh.
** It seems that “Wayne” is an abnormally common middle name among convicted murderers.