Questions about the name “Zero”

Yes. I have two middle names.

Not content with the oddity of having an incredibly unusual first name, life saw fit to bestow me with two middle names. Yes, two. (As if “Zero” just wasn’t enough!)

“Zachariah” is my first middle name. And “Batzell” is the second.

As you can see, there are a lot of “Z’s” in my name. Three “Z’s” to be exact (for those keeping track — Yes, you will be quizzed later).

I always love when people say something intended to be cool like, “You think I’m dangerous, baby? Danger is my middle name!”.

Sure, it works when your name is “John ‘Danger’ Doe”. It doesn’t work so well for “Zero ‘Danger’ Dean”.

Zero Danger? Jeez, I can’t even be intimidating!

Zero will do just fine in most occasions. Or, if you feel the need to be more formal, “Mr. Zero” has a nice ring to it. But if you can help it, please refrain from calling me “Mr. Dean”. That’s my Dad.

Having gone by “Zero Z. Batzell Dean” for years, 2001 marked the year where I streamlined my name to what it is now, “Zero Dean”.

“Why?”, you ask. Well, maybe it was the result of trying to reduce the cramping in my hand every time I signed autographs (um, I mean my signature). Or maybe I finally realized that my first name is challenging enough for most people!

Explaining my name to every person who asks about it can be time consuming. At one time I had this fear that if I continued to give an explanation to everyone who asked, I would look back on my life as an old man and realize I’d spent 1/3 of it explaining my name, another 3rd sleeping, a bit more eating, shaving, and so forth…

It doesn’t exactly lead to a fulfilling life, now does it? So to make things easier on myself, I often adopt “Dean” as my first name to avoid having to provide an explanation.

My friends often stand by and laugh, but it really does make such things as ordering pizza or dealing with the public a lot easier. Of course, I’m “Zero” when I don’t mind the extra attention. ;)

It varies quite a bit. Many people have a difficult time believing it is actually my name and jokingly require proof (ID please?). Others simply think they heard it wrong, “I’m sorry, what was that?”.

And yet others will simply nod and smile, as if there’s nothing unusual about it at all. But I know what they’re really thinking is:

“You know, Self (it’s a scientific fact that when most people speak to themselves, they refer to themselves as “self”), it almost sounded to me like he said his name was Zero! Hmmm…I could ask him to repeat what he said, but then I’d look uncool!”

[Ok, I so was just kidding about that scientific fact (I made that part up), but I'm pretty confident that most people who just nod and smile when they hear my name are just trying to maintain a certain degree of "cool" by not asking me to repeat myself.]

While most people do consider it unusual (to varying degrees) at first, folks who use it a few times often comment on how “normal” it seems after a while. And once that happens, they realize how cool it is to have such a unique name.

Occasionally some people have a difficult time with it. I guess they’ve learned to associate the word “zero” with something derogatory so they consider it an insult to call me by my real name. Some have even refused to do it. I once met a girl who told me her family once adopted a dog named “Zero”, but they felt so bad calling the dog that, that they changed its name!

It was Mom’s responsibility…and I’m actually glad! (I don’t want to say what my biological father (they got divorced when I was 3) wanted to call me. Rest assured, Zero is better!).

I assure you, my Mom loves me very much (at least she’s told me so on occasion) and nothing negative at all was intended by it. Needless to say, my parents were…uh, influenced by the 60′s a bit. Yes, you could say they were hippies. And by the time I came about in the early 70′s, they were still very much into the hippie groove.

This was a time when a lot of people were naming their children unusual things. I could’ve easily been named “Sako“, or “Peace”, or “Rainbow”, or “Dweezil”, or “Moon Unit” or something… but instead, I got Zero. I don’t think my Mom ever considered what the consequences (for me) might be… Or maybe she did. They say unusual names build character.

But no, she never thought I’d amount to “nothing”…and no, it’s honestly not my IQ (it is, at least, marginally higher than “0″, thankyouverymuch!)

Here are some of the things she mentioned as having an influence in my naming…

1. The Native American beliefs of the “circle of life” or the “medicine wheel”

2. Zero as in “absolute balance”… (The center of an infinite number system between positive and negative. A powerful place to be.)

3. The actor/comedian “Zero Mostel” (A.k.a. Samuel Joel Mostel. Press agent Ivan Black gave the starting out Mostel the nickname Zero: “After all, here’s a guy who’s starting from nothing.”)

4. The title of a Bob Dylan song, “Love Minus Zero”

5. It’s unique

I love it!

Are you surprised?

For me, one of the good things about it is that it’s memorable. :) Though sometimes this can create complications, since I don’t always remember other people’s names. So you can imagine people walk up to me and greet me by name and I haven’t a clue what their name is. Ugh.

I’m still prompted to provide an explanation every time I’m introduced to someone (which has its ups and downs). I’ve pretty much learned to avoid giving my actual name over the phone when trying to order food for delivery, etc. :) (Fortunately, my last name is also a first name, so I typically give that one instead. It works).

Yeah, but who didn’t!? Sure, Junior High was a little difficult at times. Kids can be ruthless… but you know what, kids pick on anything and everything. My name just happened to be an easy target. At least I didn’t have big ears! ;)

Believe it or not, most people call me “Zero” — and I prefer that, actually.

However, I’ve had a lot of nicknames in my time — “Zee”, “Zippy”, “Null”, “Sub”, “Frank” (ok, I’m kidding with that last one)…but actually, the nickname that has stuck most in the past couple of years is, believe it or not, “Jimmy”.

Yes, Jimmy.

Think about it — James Dean — Zero Dean — Jimmy. You see the connections here?

Sure, how about these…

“What’s that, your IQ?” (that one’s pretty easy)

“Your parents didn’t think you would amount to anything, did they?” (or variations thereof)

(The unintentional insult) : “Well, I just don’t feel comfortable calling you Zero. Is there anything else I can call you?”

(Unintentionally insulting after hearing my name) : “I’m sorry!” (that’s not a “Sorry?” with a question mark to signify they didn’t hear me. That’s a “sorry!” with an exclamation point to signify that they’re sorry for my “misfortune”).

My personal favorite: “Zero? Why don’t you get a real number for a name?”

Only that most people don’t realize how many times the number zero is actually used in common, every day dialogue, or how often it is printed in ads. I could cover my refrigerator with “Zero’s” cutout from the Sunday newspaper (ok, maybe a couple Sunday newspapers).

Want a brief glimpse into my world? This is what listening to a car advertisement on TV or radio sounds like to me:

Mitsubishi is proud to announce our Mike percent financing for Mike down for MIKE months sales drive! That’s right, MIKE PERCENT FINANCING for MIKE DOWN for MIKE months. We’re calling it our MIKE MIKE for MIKE sales drive!

There’s also:

The midwest is experience records lows this month, temperatures have dropped down to 20 below Mike! That’s 10 degrees lower than average for this time of year.

Conversation overheard at the mall: “Oh man, that girl is sooo hot. What are the chances that girl would go out with me if I went up and asked her?” Answer: “MIKE!”

Have you noticed all the products with Mike in the name or on the label? There’s Coke Mike, Sprite Mike, and all kinds of fat free products… you know, with like Mike fat!

And every single math class I ever had…you cannot imagine (but think about it anyway). There’s really nothing quite like having someone say your name every 30 seconds for an hour.

And how about all those “zero” products nowadays? Coke Zero. Sprite Zero. Or anything with “zero aftertaste”. Zero aftertaste? I don’t even want to think about that!