The International Registory of Backward Names

The International Registry of Backward Names

[La Registerio Della Backuwardo Nominattoes Globella]


A huge global list of backwards names in use worldwide, compiled by Leinad Moolb in cyberspace


[Please send nominations and sightings to: leinadmoolb AT gmail DOT com ]

Doing it backwards................................

The International Director of Backwards Names ignites a worldwide craze as hundreds of people across the globe join Nad Moolb's international registry of individuals listing their names or company names in reverse, the Associated Press wrote in 1990.


Spell your name right and Dan Bloom just yawns with boredom. But dare to spell it backwards and you join a select crowd, members of Nad Moolb's International Registry of Backward Names. What's it all about, and the big question -- why?

It started as a lark in the USA in 1990 but has turned into a longterm hobby as hundreds of Americans -- and others from as far away as Europe, Africa and Asia -- have sent Bloom email letters and postcards with their names in reverse. There's now a free website on the Internet, and the call is going out now for more nominations and signups.

Tim Rae of Baltimore, Maryland, also known as ''Ear Mit'', signed up in when the registry first went public in the early 1990s. He told Bloom that he has used his backward name ever since friends dubbed him Ear Mit during his college days.

So has Ed Clayfoot of Dallas, Texas, who name reversed is listed as De Tooftalc, in Nad Moolb's whimsical little registry. Toofyalc also sent in the names of 27 Toofyalf family members, including the family dog, Leber (Rebel).

Derf Semloh (Fred Holmes) of Irving, Texas, has used his backward name in organizing a dart tournament for the last 35 years.

In Tokyo, there's a coffee shop called "Alucard" in both English and Japanese signage. When Bloom asked the Japanese owner why he chose that name, the owner said he was a big fan of the Dracula movies from Europe and the USA, and Alucard is, well.....read it backwards!

Over 1000 people from 15 countries have signed up for the real but imaginary registry since it was first launched in 1990, Bloom said in a recent e-mail from his spartan open-air office on the subtropical island nation of Taiwan in the Western Pacific ocean.

For 2005, Bloom, aka Nad Moolb, has taken his registry into cyberspace, set up a website that allows for comments and free membership requests and is now putting out cyber-feelers around the globe for new members and name and word nominations worldwide.

"With the Internet, distance no longer exists, and we can sign people up, add their names to our registry and email back to them in Internet Time," says Bloom, a 45 year old Boston native who has made his home in Japan and Taiwan since 1991.

"I'm just doing this to give people around the world a chuckle, in times when we all need a chuckle. The real world news right now is not very good at the moment," Bloom says. "How did I get into this hobby? I kind of just stumbled into it. Now the New York Times, CNN, the BBC, NPR and a host of newspaper reporters from around the world are calling me to verify if this thing is real. It is. I am. We are."

There's no cost and no obligation for those who sign up. All prospective members must do is send in their names by e-mail, backwards. of course, to Nad Moolb's official backward e-mail account at leinadmoolb ATMARK gmail DOT com

Bloom says that he eventually plans to donate the entire file and list of names over to the SmithsonianInstitution's popular culture division in Washington, DC. For free-- he doesn't want any money for this project. It's just a hobby "to keep me sane in an at times insane world," he says.

Moolb, er, Bloom, first got the idea for the registry back in 1983 when he started writing a weekly newspaper humor column for a newspaper that he edited in Alaska, signing his name as "Leinad Moolb." "It was a far-fetched, tall-tales view of Alaska and the world in general," Bloom said about the column. "In fact, some of my columns worked their way, I believe, into the popular Hollywood TV show called 'Northern Exposure,' which was about life in a small Alaskan town.

"I thought it might be fun to have someone else's name on the stuff I wrote, since I was the editor of the paper."

Enter Leinad Moolb. Then people began sending him examples of backward names that have come into everyday use:

* A California company that makes cement calls itself TNEMEC.
* An oil additive produced in Boston is named Silogram, after its inventor, Ed Margolis.
* Oprah Winfrey's TV production firm is named Harpo Productions.
* The late Frank Sinatra used to sign his oil paintings with the name "Artanis".
* A street in Annapolis, Maryland, is called Silopanna Street on the street maps there.
* A travel company in San Francisco is called LevartTravel Company.
* A coffee shop in Tokyo called Alucard, for fans of Dracula.
* The names even of some characters in the novels of Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, or is that Kiruha Mikaramu? [In Japanese, the backwards things are the separate sounds backwards. Japanese entertainers call their coffee, hiko, for exampke, which is kohi sounded out backwards. Saifu, wallet, becomes fusai. Beeru becomes rubee. Gangsters use this backwards vocabulary, too.]
* Fathers named Leon who name their sons Noel; fathers named Amos who name their daughters Soma. Mothers named Selma who name their daughters Amles.
* A burger joint in Davis, California that serves buffalo and ostrich burgers and was originally called Murder Burgers. However, the city council felt the name was too violent and asked the owne to change it. He did: to Red Rum Burgers.
* Nutrimetics used to sell a product called Derits. It was a herbal tablet that helped you to stay awake -- a natural version of caffeine. Hence the name -- ''tired'' spelled backwards.
* The song lyrics to "Work It" by Missy Elliott, 2002, that go:

"Is it worth it? Let me work it
I put my thing down flip it, and reverse it
Ti esrever dna, ti pilf, nwod
gniht ym tup, I...
I you got a big you know what, let me search ya..."

There's more, much more, in Bloom's archives. And he's putting the information on his website now.

"What I am doing is very unimportant and trivial in the big scheme of things," Bloom, a freelance writer and magazine editor who graduated from Tufts University in Boston with a degree in literature, says. "But people around the world apparently find it interesting. I do, too!"

That interest has increased over the years when Bloom began appearing on radio shows across North America and began using the Internet to publicize his campaign in order to prmote his idea of the registry."

"There's a small coffee shop in Tokyo called Alucard, which is Dracula spelled backwards," says Bloom, who lived in Japan in the early 1990s where he learned that many show biz entertainers use backward terms in Japanese for things like beer or coffee (''beeru'' or beer becomes ''rubee'', and coffee or ''cohee'', becomes ''heeko'').

"The owner told me hewas a big fan of the Dracula books and movies, and apparently Count Dracula often used his name backward when he was alive. The sign outside the coffee shop there is written out in Japanese hiragana characters!"

Bloom also learned that popular Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami spices his books with names of characters that are sounded out backwards as well.

Bloom says he is a somewhat surprised at the amount of international interest in his registry, but he thinks the world always need a laugh or two to help it get through the day.

"Maybe in a world that is so mobile .... joining a backwards name club is a way of feeling you are part of something," Bloom, a native of Boston, Massachusetts and a graduate of Tufts University, says. But he says that he likes to think there is a greater meaning.

"This isn't my club, this isn't 'Dan Bloom's Backwards Names Club'. This is 'the International Registry of Backward Names'," Bloom says. "This club belongs to everyone who joins in the fun. People feel they are becoming a part of history by signing up their names in reverse."

[NOTE: To join, send in your backwards name or backward company name or any other backward name you have spotted or heard about to leinadmoolb ATMARK gmail dot com

You, or your backwards better half, will receive a letter validating your registration by return email. It's all free, your email address will never be given out to anyone and everything will remain confidential.

Let's add..................................................................

Zul Airam Senyam of Luz Maria Designs in California who told us about Red Rum Burgers above, and who noted in her email: "Thank you for being different." Hey, that's what life is all about!

Leg of Eel, a wonderful name for Lee Fogel.