What’s in a name?

[Paul Ziemer]

I curious as to how many of my fellow card board aviators have pilot names with a story behind them. Usually, I look up a first name for the appropriate nationality in the charts that were included in edition 7, next I’ll Google popular surnames for the country involved and choose one. Now my stable of pilots is very small at the moment (owning to my recent indulgence of this game), however my first German pilot Edwin Grubermann (Pfalz D XII) was named in honor of this comedy routine from my youth:

Here

Are there any other stories behind the names of pilots?

Paul

[Jim Phillips]

Hey Paul,

I have a couple of Pilots named after my Grandfather and Great Grandfather, but that’s all.

[Alan J Carlson]

A number of my pilots bear last names from my mother’s family, and from my wife’s family.

My most notorious pilot though was a RFC/RAF Camel pilot, George Flashman, posited to be the great-nephew of the Victorian hero/poltroon Harry Flashman (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Flashman). Like his illustrious forebear, George succeeded in spite of his yellow streak, racking up 30 missions and 8 kills before a brace of Fokker Triplanes did him in. RIP, Geo. Flashman, DFC, DSO, VC (post.).

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