avoidance behavior?

[derien]

*looks at the dishes* 

*drinks copious amounts of tea*

*edites the Wikipedia page on Ronald Psmith to reflect the fact that he originally seemed to be named Rupert.* 

I suspect that Wodehouse also accidently gave Lord Emsworth's secretary the same first name, and then when they were to come into the same story he figured it would be confusing for them to have the same first name and so changed Psmith's, thinking nobody would notice. 

Comments

[tootsiemuppet.livejournal.com]

But why do that at all when he could just as easily have omitted using his full name at all. Psmith might easily just be Psmith instead of tacking either Rupert or Ronald Eustace to the front of it, and Baxter might very easily just be Baxter. Staff hardly ever gets referred to by their first name, anyway. Admittedly, secretaries probably don't fall into the same category as your average member of the household staff at all, but still... I wonder if it was an oversight.

That said, Plum does seem too have a preference for a certain number of names, doesn't he? Reggies are popping up all the time, I've noticed that. Let's do a little Google search: Reggie Jeeves, Reggie Byng (A Damsel in Distress), Reggie Mulliner (The Portrait of a Disciplinarian), Reggie Pepper (the proto-Bertie), Reggie Tennyson (The Luck of the Bodkins), Reggie Swithin (Laughing Gas), Reggie van Tuyl (The Indiscretions of Archie), Reginald Cracknell (The Adventures of Sally), Reginald Brown (The Heart of a Goof), ...

I'm sure there's more still... Not that this has anything to do with it, but it just popped into my head to try it.

[derien.livejournal.com]

I suspect there's certain names he finds amusing. Agustas (Gussie) Fink-Nottle and Agustas the cat. Wilberforce is Bertie's middle name and, I believe, the last name of the woman who Bertie's uncle marries (the one who'd been his sweetheart when they were young but was of the wrong class so they were broken up by the family). He also gives a writer who is universally acknowledged as horrible, in "Psmith, Journalist," his own middle name as her middle name. ;)

But the Reggie example is the best!