What's in a Name?

NPR's Peter Overby is working on a story about the longtime practice of naming federal buildings, bridges and highways after famous people, living or dead. This was prompted when Peter saw they were about to name a federal courthouse in Nashville after Bill Frist, the Republican Senate majority leader who is retiring after this year.

The problem you run into is when your name is attached to something that causes heartache. Sure, federal courthouses are innocuous enough. But what happens when you get out of Yankee Stadium and have to sit on the Major Deegan Expressway? Doesn't your blood boil at this Major Deegan guy? (Peter tells me that Deegan, a Bronx Democratic official, served in World War I and was an advocate for veterans.) And what about the perennial tie-up on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge outside of Washington on I-95? Sometimes you get so angry at the traffic that you hope the League of Nations would just fall apart.

It gets worse. Today, in checking out the Times of India online -- as I usually do on Wednesdays -- I see that the proprietor of a restaurant in Navi Mumbai is getting heat simply because he called it "Hitler's Cross." In a BBC interview, he insisted that he didn't name the restaurant after any Hitler in particular, though it should be pointed out that there is a huge swastika on the front of the building, filling in the "O" in the word "Cross." Despite the worldwide furor, managing director Puneet S. Sabhlok -- who has yet to show up at a George Allen rally -- said he didn't violate any laws and that the name would not be changed.

If they do change the name, I still say that they stay away from Major Deegan. All I can think of is sitting in that traffic.