How I Got my Name

The silver Jaguar my parents had to sell because I was on the way.

My father, Thomas J. Allen, Jr. was a sculptor.

He wanted to leave me without a name. I was his first thing he made that could name itself.

But the hospital would not hear of it.

So he proposed “Untitled Work Allen.”

Again, the hospital said, “No.”

So, my first name came from my dad’s uncle: Brooke Cadwallader.

On October 2, 1952, our nation had a president with a middle initial but no middle name. Because my mom’s name was Tina and my dad’s was Tom, they decided to follow suit and give me the only part the could agree on; the letter T.

Only later did we discover that the doctor must have been a golfer.