The Arizona Fall League season recently wrapped up for the year, but it left us with an intriguing player to ponder: Rangers prospect Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa, a Hawaiian-born pitcher who played for the Surprise Saguaros.
Hoopii-Tuionetoa’s official MiLB page lists his surname as “Hoopii-Tuionetoa” (which is also what was printed on his Arizona Fall League Media Day identification card). That would be prodigious enough on its own — 15 letters plus a hyphen, which would put him in the same rarefied air as Simeon Woods Richardson (15 letters plus a space).
But as you can see in the screen shot above, Hoopii-Tuionetoa’s Arizona Fall League NOB included two apostrophes: HO’OPI’I-TUIONETOA.
As it turns out, the guy’s full name is actually Anthony David Maui La‘akea Ho‘opi‘i-Tuionetoa. And those two marks in his surname aren’t apostrophes — they’re ‘okinas. If you’d never heard of an ‘okina before, I’m right there with you, but it’s apparently a Hawaiian punctuation mark that looks like a backwards apostrophe. So instead of HO’OPI’I-TUIONETOA, his NOB really should have been HO‘OPI‘I-TUIONETOA.
Either way, that would give him 15 letters, a hyphen, and two additional punctuation marks — an MLB record, for sure! Or it would be, if Ho‘opi‘i-Tuionetoa were playing in the big leagues. He only made it to High-A ball this past year, so he’s at least a few years away from the majors. (Preliminary photo research indicates that his Arizona stint may have been the first time he’s ever worn an NOB.)
I love that Ho‘opi‘i-Tuionetoa is with the Rangers, who are up there with the Reds as having the clunkiest, most overdesigned NOB font. But his surname would still be entertaining on pretty much any MLB team’s jersey. Let’s just hope he never ends up with the Yankees.
(Big thanks to Neal Dorfman for teaching me about ‘okinas.)
That Plastone can… wow! The car looks to be an interpretation of the ’55 Lincoln Futura concept that was repurposed a few years later as the ’66 TV Batmobile.
So what happens when a hyphenated named person marries a hyphenated named person and has a child? Four names? I believe Germany has banned hyphenated names, which seems extreme. I remember reading that a Scandinavian country some married couples are choosing a new name for their family instead of picking one, or hyphenating.
Sure it sounds extreme, but German names are often quite long to begin with.
Do you really want a kid with the last name Schweinsteiger-Klostermann-Mertesacker-Schlotterbeck?
To quote the second episode of Friends – “I think that borders on child abuse.”
So what happens when a hyphenated named person marries a hyphenated named person and has a child? Four names? I believe Germany has banned hyphenated names, which seems extreme. I remember reading that a Scandinavian country some married couples are choosing a new name for their family instead of picking one, or hyphenating.
So what happens when a hyphenated named person marries a hyphenated named person and has a child?
I’m sure they’ll figure it out. In any case, it’s hard to imagine anything more personal, and less anyone else’s business, than what people choose to call themselves.
Technically, it is everybody’s business. I never refer to myself in the 3rd person, but everybody else in the world needs to know what to call me. So while it is my choice to be addressed a certain way, everyone else does need to know – be it on my business card or the back of my jersey.
My point is that a person’s choice of what to call themself is nobody else’s business.
In other words, let’s not judge people for choosing (or not choosing) hyphenated names. Live and let live, etc.
That NOB is deliberately ridiculous. Shirley their tailor or designer or equipment manager or whoever could come up with something that doesn’t look so clownish. That is, if they wanted to.
The only ridiculous thing about it is the font.
With that font, they can’t.
And don’t call me Shirley.
Many teams had a thinner font for long names, and Oakland even made a super-condensed font for one player:
link
I think Nike is just being cheap in not doing it anymore.
Paul, two questions:
Any idea if Ho‘opi‘i-Tuionetoa is hyphenated because those are both of his parents’ family names, as would be relatively new practice in US culture now, or is it something specific to his Hawaiian heritage?
Also, did Flower Moon feel long? I was excited to see it based on the previews but then I saw the runtime and am hesitant about sitting in a theater for well over three hours.
No idea about the name.
I enjoyed every moment of the movie and would gladly have watched another hour. (But I didn’t sneak beer in, like I usually do, because I figured that would necessitate a bathroom break.)
How do you sneak beer in? I get candy because it’s in a flat box, but I’d love to hear how you manage to get a round bottle or can in. If you manage to get in multiple, I’d be even more impressed.
I keep all my stuff (including beers) in a canvas satchel that I take with me.
I bring in a large metal water bottle whenever I go to the movies, but am also always purchasing popcorn. So whether it is because they just think it is water, because I am buying other concessions, or the front of house workers aren’t paid enough to care, I haven’t had a problem bringing in a beverage.
And I could easily just fill it up with any other drink when I go, they don’t check the contents.
Hominy is only 20 miles from Pawhuska, OK and 25 miles from Fairfax, OK. The two places where most of the movie was set and filmed.
A semantic note; The ʻokina isn’t a punctuation mark in Hawaiian, it’s a full-on letter of its alphabet. It stands for a glottal stop, which is a sound in Hawaiian phonics on the same level as, for instance, the labial stop and the velar stop, AKA “p” and “k”.
Thanks for that!
Spot on about the movie Paul. I saw it last night as well. Marty still has it!! Incredible.
Even though it’s totally over-produced as you say, I’ve always been a fan of custom, non-standard-block fonts, for numbers and NOBs…as long as they’re still legible, that is.
But I really wish all teams, especially those like Texas and Cincinnati, would come up with a condensed version of their fonts in cases like this. Some teams have such a variation, others don’t. Because having an NOB cover that much surface area just looks ridiculous to me.
Hey Congrats to Wayne, love the Oxford Pennant site, shout out to Dave Horesh, thanks….super cool customized banners are a bonus…