The Backwards Name Thing.

[Jim H]

Have you ever noticed that if you put alot of western, anglo first names backwards they come out seeming like either middle eastern names, Israeli names, or a name you'd see in the Bible? Examples:

James - Semaj
Deborah - Harobed
Denise - Esined
Michael - Leachim
Martin - Nitram
Miles - Selim

You can really go on and on with this. No wonder western and eastern cultures think the other is backward. Even the names are that way. I wonder if you took alot of names from the eastern hemisphere and flipped them if they would seem western. Hmmmmmm.

I bet a good portion of this has to do with the different ways biblical era names descended into Arabic and and English.  Many biblical names exist in multiple languages, often in VERY different ways.  Try looking up all the variants of James/Jacob.

[Mofo Rising]

Most names are built from the phonetic parts, so the backwards hypothesis doesn't quite work, but it is a weird coincidence.

Speaking of weird coincidences, and in the vein of indianasmith's post, if you remember the series Twin Peaks, there was a weird space midget who spoke in a weird backwards intonation. To achieve the affect, Michael J. Anderson, the dwarf actor spoke the lines phonetically backwards, and then the film was reversed so the lines sounded like "normal" speech.

When David Lynch was describing the process to him, Anderson said that it had been a hobby of his for years. Alright, it may not be that weird, but it was that sort of happenstance that the series was built on.

It's pretty fun. If you've got a camera and some software, try it out for yourself. Hours of fun.