In the Trenches: What's in a name?

I was born with a simple, straightforward name - David Harris. Thankfully, it never generated attention, much less teasing, while growing up.

Yet it was actually quite unique in my milieu. I was surrounded by Jewish kids, and Harris was not exactly a common surname. How my peripatetic father ended up with the name is a story for another time. On the other hand, this was an era when assimilating Jewish parents were thinking about first names far from the likes of David.

But once I left my little corner of the world, I discovered that my name was anything but unique.

I arrived at university. It was the late 1960s and many campuses were in turmoil. Student protests over the Vietnam War, military education programs, and CIA recruiting were widespread.

And who emerged as one of the student leaders of this movement?

None other than David Harris. But it wasn't me.

No, it was a student at Stanford University who achieved national fame and later married the popular folk singer Joan Baez.

And suddenly, when I introduced myself, I was often confronted with the question, "Are you the real David Harris?"

Of course, in the mind of the questioner, I was anything but, thus triggering my first name-generated identity crisis.

Years later, my family moved to Westchester County, just outside New York. One day, the phone rang. The caller identified herself as a reporter for The New York Times.

Here's more or less how the conversation went:

"Is this David Harris?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," I replied. "How can I help you?"

"I'm calling from the New York Times to get your reaction to a breaking story."

"Sure, what is it?"

"How do you feel about your mother's release from prison today?"

"Not sure I understand. What exactly did Mom do this time? Jaywalk? Drive below the minimum speed limit on the New York Thruway?"

"Mr. Harris, I don't think murder is a laughing matter!"

Well, it turned out that Jean Harris, the Virginia school headmistress who had killed her lover, Dr. Herman Tarnower, in a case that generated huge media attention, had a son. Yes, his name was David Harris and he presumably lived in Westchester County.

Then, a few years later, I was sitting on a plane headed for Houston.

I'm one of those travelers who tries to build an invisible wall between me and the person sitting next to me. From long experience, I've discovered that the chances of meeting someone who will chew your ear off are far greater than the chances of meeting someone scintillating, so why risk it?

But my neighbor was determined to puncture the wall, and eventually succeeded. After some aimless chit-chat, she thrust out her hand and introduced herself. I responded with my hand and name. She paused for a second before blurting out: "I thought you were dead."

Now, working in the Jewish world, I'm used to what we call Jewish compliments, along the lines of "You don’t look so good" and "You don't seem at the top of your game." This one, however, took the cake.

I needed a moment to recover from her comment before replying that, to the best of my knowledge, I was still kicking, unless she could see something in me that I obviously couldn't see in myself.

A bit more conversation and everything became clear.

There is, or more precisely was, a David Harris in Houston who gained some notoriety.

He was an orthodontist who cheated on his wife. She tried to win him back by having cosmetic surgery and changing her wardrobe, but alas, it didn't work. The philandering continued. Finally, the wife had enough. She took out the family car and ran him over - not once, but three times, to make sure he got the point. He died, but not before another David Harris had made it into the headlines.

As a matter of fact, having first checked phone books and later the internet, it's safe to say that David Harris is about as "un-unique" a name as there is. But at least I thought I was safe in the Jewish world. Not so.

Along came another David Harris. In fact, he even shares the same middle initial with me and, wouldn't you know it, he decided to enter the Jewish world.

First, he joined another Jewish organization with the very same initials as my own AJC.

I don't think I have to describe the confusion that can be generated by two people with the exact same name working for two Jewish organizations with the exact same initials.

I kept hoping he'd be unhappy in his chosen career path, or maybe decide to convert to another religion, or be so avant-garde that he might marry and take his wife's surname. None of that happened.

So, instead, I figured I'd just take credit for everything smart he said and disown the things I disagreed with.

Then he moved. He went to the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Well, the good news is that we no longer have institutional initials in common. 

The bad news is that he's clearly a partisan, and I'm not. In fact, I've spent my entire career studiously avoiding partisan labels for my agency or myself. Yet now I'm confused with a professional partisan - and those who always suspected me of being a closet Democrat think they finally got me.

So, let me say once and for all that I was never married to Joan Baez, never had a mother in jail on a murder conviction, haven't come back from the dead, and am not a card-carrying member of anything political.

No doubt, however, it won't be long before the next name confusion - maybe this time with the professional football player, David Harris of the New York Jets. Now that's one I might not even try to disown.