MANDY FLYNN: The club membership’s expanding

A rose by any other name …

I’ve said it before but it’s worth mentioning again if only to remind certain older people of the burning guilt they should still be enduring. When I was in first grade, my supposed-to-be-trusted-and-mature siblings told me Barry Manilow wrote the song “Mandy” about me. What 6-year-old wouldn’t believe her much older brother and sisters, especially when they tell her a famous pop star she has never met is singing about her — her — on the radio?

They also told me our cousin Marvin Nation was a dancer on The Lawrence Welk Show and our dog Sheba could drive.

Sheba was a real smart dog.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad except that now, 42 years later, I feel compelled to apologize to my fellow first-graders. I am sorry I lied. Barry Manilow did not write the song “Mandy” about me like I came to school and told you he did. I was an innocent victim of much, much older — and, I suspect, evil — siblings.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

All of this to say, despite my personal heartbreak associated with the song, the name Mandy is apparently quite popular. This little fact has become increasingly evident to me in just the last couple of years.

Ten years ago, I can honestly say I personally knew of no more than two, maybe three Mandys other than myself, including the critically acclaimed American actor and tenor Mandy Patinkin. It was not until his 1987 role that I learned a man could also be named Mandy, thanks to the “The Princess Bride.”

Wuv, twue wuv, will fow-wow you fowevah.

Today, I can honestly say I personally know of at least 15, maybe more. Mandys, it seems, are taking over the world. Case in point. Just the other day.

“This is Mandy.” That’s how I answer my phone at work.

Pause.

“Hey, Mandy … this is Mandy,” said the woman on the other end of the phone, a sales person somewhere in Utah calling me about signing up for a webinar. (I knew I shouldn’t have clicked on that link.) Then she added …

“What are the odds of that? We’re both named Mandy!”

Well … they’re quite good odds, actually. I work with a Mandy. Ask for “Mandy” in our office and you will assuredly be met with, “Which one?” There are no less than four additional Mandys I work with in one way or another very regularly. I met a Mandy last week at the convenience store. I knew her name was Mandy because it said so on her nametag so I told her my name was Mandy, too.

She didn’t seem impressed.

When our children were in elementary school, Mandy Waters and I took turns being Other Mandy. For the past few decades, ever since my sister named her own daughter Mandy, I have been known as Big Mandy. I used to think Big Mandy sounded like the name of a woman at the fair you’d pay two tickets to see, but now I think it sounds tough. You wouldn’t mess with a Big Mandy.

I don’t mind sharing my name with all the other Mandys in the world, or even the countless other ones that seem to come out of nowhere every day right here at home. I feel sort of connected, kind of like a club. The Mandy Club. Even if I did mind, what would I do? Change my name? I’ve always liked the name Shirley, ever since I was little and thought I could be the next Shirley Temple.

Big Mandy by any other name … like Shirley …

Nah. I hope Big Mandy fow-wows me fowevah.

Visit lifestyle columnist Mandy Flynn’s website www.mandyflynn.com.