Watts In a Name

As illustrated in a previous post, I am intrigued by stage names and pseudonyms, and over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to witness the act of creation made flesh by attending several burlesque shows, most recently during last weekend's New Orleans Burlesque Festival. Burlesque names are always fun, usually creative, and sometimes nigh-genius. Most of them attempt to evoke a playful cheekiness or a sense of throwback glamor, and I wanted to share with everyone ten of my favorite noms de guerre currently gracing the stage:

Betsy Bottom Dollar
Alotta Boutte
Ava Garter
Dirty Martini
Immodesty Blaize
Baby Le Strange
Charlotte Treuse
Ursula Undress
Iva Handfull
Coco Lectric & Ruby Joule

Grouping Coco and Ruby together is a bit of a cheat, but it makes it easier to explain that they belong to the same performing troupe, Austin, TX's Jigglewatts, easily my favorite name for a troupe. A close runner-up is Knoxville, TN's Cabaret Salome.  Both groups feature not only skilled and passionate performers, but wicked senses of humor and girls who not only strip, but sing.  Texas' Jolie Ampere Goodnight has the voice of an angel, and I would gladly pay money to hear Tennessee's Siren Santina perform a conventional concert in which she does not disrobe.  What can I say, I love the songbirds.

Seeing so many great performers with so many great names made me consider what a poorly-chosen burlesque name might be.  So, to honor the innate humor of burlesque and neo-burlesque, I had to generate a list to counterpoint the many clever names listed above.  Without further ado, here are ten names burlesque performers should not choose:

Penny Slots
Piscene Quality
Brazen Hussein, the Persian Pepperpot
Rue FiFi
Mena Pause
Melancholia Dane
Clams Medea
Roxy Codone
Trisha Moniasis
Virginia Dentata

Some of those names might actually work for roller derby girls, but that will be a post for another time.