Onomamania
The term onomamania describes an obsession with names. Though I swear I do not need a straitjacket, I have always been a bit crazy about names. When I was a boy of nine or ten, I invented a game that I could play on my own involving dice and made-up football teams. With the help of a road atlas, I picked the team names - usually with my eyes closed. Each team in the league required eleven players and to name them required a telephone directory. Again - with my eyes closed - I would hit upon a random page and use my index finger to find each player's name. Hence "Hunstanton Town" might be represented by:- Reed (goalkeeper), Barlow, Riley, Wilcox, Moon, Godfrey, Brague, Edwards, Gray, Slatten and Taylor (captain). The game against "Cleckheaton Rovers" would be played with the aid of the dice and all scores would be recorded in my notebook. Maybe Dunham would score the winner for Cleckheaton. A lot of my pleasure was derived from the initial naming proces...