You've Got My Number

I've heard of cultures where people have names instead of numbers. That is, there names aren't numbers. How strange it would be to be called Jane or Michael instead of 27.

I like being 27. It suits me. I think it's neat to meet other people named 27. Nobody ever misspells my name.

I was named 27 because my parents liked the sound of it. Other people got the name because the number had some sort of significance, like being the cube of 3.

If I had a word name, I would be limited in how the letters are combined. But all numbers are available for names, in any combination, although it's considered rather uncouth to have a single-digit name. Like you are trying to put on airs or something. If you are a criminal, your number is canceled and you get a name like Ralph or Hilda or Spot. It's very embarrassing.

Names above 1000 (nobody uses commas) get to be a mouthful, so there are relatively few named 1973 (one thousand nine hundred seventy three). And someone with that name would probably take 73 as a nickname.

Prime numbers were all the rage about the time I was born, so I have a lot of peers with names like 19 and 37. Now you can tell someone is aging because they have a name like that. The new generation is into even numbers: 44; 72; 356.

The even centuries and thousands are reserved for family names. Like, I'm 27-300. I'm not the only 27-300 in the world, but there are relatively few of us. It's the 1000s who are so numerous. The phone books has page after page of 1000s, all with different words to call them up at. My listing says
27-300, The Woods, Belmont, Northwest Widgerton, bellwood-burke-tit. See, it's easy.