MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – My name is John and when I was growing up it stood out like a blade of grass on a 100-yard football field. 
 
In other words, it didn't.
 
It was as if there were 15 Johns in my 14-boy grade school class.
 
When I was little, I used to remind everyone that John was actually Juan in Spanish - at least that's what mom used to tell me. In Russian, it's supposedly Ivan. In German it's Johann and in French it's Jean. My French teacher was nice enough to let me use Jean-Pierre in her class.
 
Our old neighbor Melvin used to jokingly call me Juan Petrokovich, 100% American, because I told him Juan was my name in Spanish. He had a tougher time with the surname Antonik, which has developed many variants over the years depending upon geography and dialect. I went with an-TONE-ick, but others in my family use an-tun-ick. The people who worked in the Atlantic 10 Conference office used to call me an-TONIC, which rhymes with gin and tonic, but if you follow me on Twitter, you know that I'm strictly an IPA guy.

Nevertheless, my version is probably the wrong pronunciation, but I'm sticking with it the rest of the way until I take the big nap.
 
Once, I looked up the origins of the name John and it turned out to be a pretty enlightening: 

The name John is derived from the Hebrew Yohanan, meaning "graced by God." It is a solid, traditional name that exudes strength, smarts, and kindness.
 
How about that? 
 
And I always thought my dad named me John because his name started out as John before grandma changed her mind and switched it to George a couple of days after he came out of the oven.
 
Dad didn't officially, officially become "George" until his early 20s when he enlisted in the Marines and Uncle Sam didn't have a George Antonik in its filing cabinet. Back then or today, you don't mess around with Uncle Sam or the Marine Corps!
 
So, John became George and that's how I became John, and despite having a name with historical meaning and universal popularity, I always desired one more interesting and unique such as Yul or Boutros Boutros or Manny or even World B.
 
Another name I found interesting was Swen, as in the Dutch professional basketball player Swen Nater, which turns out to be pretty close to the name of our new director of athletics, Wren Baker.
 
Bob Hertzel is always probing for good stories and he asked Wren earlier this week how he got his unique name. Of course, he also had to ask him if he had a sister named Robin, but that's just Hertz being Hertz.
 
"My grandfather's name is Woodard, my grandmother was Wanda and my dad is Wyatt," Baker explained. "My dad decided he wanted to carry on the W tradition, so I have a brother named Wray and I ended up with Wren. Why he couldn't go with Will, I don't know? That's the way that worked out."
 
Therefore, Wren it was.
 
"If you add my career in, it seems like I've been searching for Ws all my life," he said. "My wife killed that tradition when we had our two daughters. I tried to get her to go with Wrenda and that was a hard 'no.'
 
"There are some battles you can't win," he added.
 
Indeed, a happy wife makes for a happy life! 
 
Wren Baker is the type of unique name that I would have loved to have had while growing up.
 
Not only is it easy to pronounce, it's easy to spell. Up until about the third grade, I used to start out with Bs on my spelling tests because I got the spelling of my last name at the top of the paper wrong. 
 
Dad just never got around to changing that one!