Origin of Name
Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, he legally changed his name
to "Bob Dylan" in 1962. It's generally accepted that "Dylan"
is derived from "Dillon" after Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke fame.
The cooler "Dylan" spelling came after he arrived in the Village.
Originally compiled: October 11, 1996
Last revised: September 20, 1997
Subject: Matt Dillon vs. Dylan Thomas
From: Ed Ricardo (edu@edlis.org)
Date: 1995/04/03
RSweener (rsweener@aol.com) wrote:
: Actually, I think Dylan's denied any link to Dylan Thomas in choosing
: his name. The Matt Dillon possibility is given just as much creedance
: these days isn't it? I don't think it would have been against the
: nature of a young man who went to the trouble of perfecting a phony
: Okey accent.
As he changed the spelling from "Dillon" to "Dylan" when the New York
crowd he wished to be in with assumed he was alluding to Dylan Thomas
I have always thought he was adapting to a new environment where naming
yourself after television cowboys was not the ultimate in trendiness...
Fascination with mythical cowboys as seen in the media never leaves
him, but he was not self-confident enough to assert his tv models
over New York literary models then. Chameleon.
Mathematically.
Matt Dillon + 1950s high school kids = cool
Dylan Thomas + Greenwich Village intellectuals = cool
Bob Dillon - i + y = Versatile chap with a future...
Ed
Subject: Origin of Name
From: sscobie1@sol.uvic.ca (Stephen Scobie)
Date: 1997/03/21
W.H. Horton, Jr. (whorton@worldnet.att.net) wrote:
> Born Robert Allen Zimmerman, he legally changed his name to "Bob Dylan" on
> August 2, 1962. It's generally accepted that "Dylan" is derived from
> "Dillon" after Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke fame. The cooler "Dylan" spelling
> came after he arrived in the Village.
"Generally accepted," maybe, but not universally. I see three
sources:
(1) "Matt Dillon of Gunsmoke fame," as you say;
(2) several "Dillon" families in the Hibbing area: see Dave Engel's
wonderful book;
(3) Bobby Dillon, all-star defensive back of the Green Bay Packers.
Personally, I see (3) as the most convincing. I do agree that he
first thought of it as "Dillon," and changed it to "Dylan" in Minneapolis or
New York under the influence of that glorious drunk Welsh poet.
Stephen
Subject: Kris Kristoffoson New Song & Comments
From: Ben Taylor (bptaylor@laguna.demon.co.uk)
Date: 1996/01/22
LJIrvin@AOL.COM "Les Irvin" writes:
> >(Dylan originally named
> >himself after Marshall Matt Dillon).
>
> Well... I think this statement is worthy of debate!
Perhaps, but only after you've read Robert Shelton's "No Direction
Home" [*] and also read & heard the disdain with which Dylan has
treated the Dylan Thomas suggestion over the years.
[* I no longer have this book and so can't look up the reference(s)]
The Matt Dillon 'theory' is by no means controversial.
Ben Taylor
Subject: WHY NAME DYLAN?
From: George Rothe (grothe@cmp.com)
Date: 1996/02/16
Lucas Stensland wrote:
>In article Stephen
>Scobie/Maureen Scobie, sscobie1@sol.uvic.ca writes:
>> WHY IS IT DYLAN, of not for Dylan Thomas?
>
>I read in . . . maybe Scobie's book, maybe Shelton's, maybe
>William's . . . that Dylan was the name of Bob's uncle, except
>the spelling was Dillion. Anybody else hear this?
I think it's safe to assume this was just another of Zimmerman's early
pranks, Much like his running off to join the carnival. Personally I
always felt Dylan (in the case of Bob) was derived from Matt Dillon, the
marshall in Gunsmoke, given Dylan's lifelong attraction to Westerns.
Subject: WHY NAME DYLAN?
From: J.M.Moore@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Mike)
Date: 1996/02/20
* * *
Shelton's book says he named himself after Matt Dillon, just preferred
the spelling Dylan.
Subject: WHY NAME DYLAN?
From: daymen@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Damien Newton)
Date: 1996/02/21
George Rothe (grothe@cmp.com) wrote:
: I think it's safe to assume this was just another of Zimmerman's early
: pranks, Much like his running off to join the carnival. Personally I
: always felt Dylan (in the case of Bob) was derived from Matt Dillon, the
: marshall in Gunsmoke, given Dylan's lifelong attraction to Westerns.
Robert Sheldon agrees with your theroy, in his Dylan bio "No Direction Home."
--
Still living with that fish on my head,
Day Me N.
"But everybody wants you to be just like him."
"Don't ask me about nothing; I might just tell you the truth."
-Bob Dylan
Subject: WHY NAME DYLAN?
From: dengreen@ix.netcom.com(Dennis J Green)
Date: 1996/02/25
I remember reading in one of the Dylan bios that he used the stage name
Bob Dillon just before he left Dinkytown (to all his college friends
derision). Some where along the line to the NYC folk scene, it morphed
to Bob Dylan.
I do believe that this "story" is probably the closest to the truth
than all the others: Dylan was always in showbiz for the money. Just as
others in the biz like Ethel Merman (Ethel zimMERMAN) needed a
short/catchy/etc, name for the billboard Robert Zimmerman at first
decided on Bob Dillon (a tip of the hat to his TV hero Matt Dillon). At
some time before he was asked for a stage name in NYC he discovered the
Welsh name Dylan (very catchy homonym: connected with poetry ala Dylan
Thomas but obscure to most Americans). I could see BD using the Welsh
name without reading the DT poetry (at first anyway) - it was just a
real COOL spelling.
Story:
I went about buying my first Bob Dylan album in 1966 - I was 15. I
heard BD on reel to reel tapes my college student counselors had that
summer. No one had album covers for me to see what he looked like or
how he spelled his name. (BD never played on radio in Philly). When I
went to the Folk Music bins, I was searching for Bob Dillon Albums. I
flipped passed many a Bob Dylan album until it occured to me that
Die-el-an must be Dillon. Looking at the listed songs I found the ones
I loved and bought 3 albums. (Within the next few months I had all his
releases up to and including Blonde on Blonde (catchy English
spelling). And until recently, I think most AMERICAN people when they FIRST hear BD's name see it with their mind's eye as Bob Dillon.
Quazimodem aka Dennis Green
Subject: names
From: Patricia Jungwirth (ricia.j@AARDVARK.APANA.ORG.AU
Date: 1995/11/07
>Nov 1995 19:59:51 GMT
>Ben Taylor
>florida.oranges@edlis.org "F.Oranges" writes:
>> We hear "his bobness / zimmy / the man " whatever.
>> Where I come from a simple Dylan will do.
>> Or I guess he don't mind Ray.
I'm surprised FO left the rest of this off:
"You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy,
You may call me RJ, you may call me Ray,
You may call me anything, no matter what you say,
You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed.."
>
>Well, no matter what name is used we all know who we mean. This is
>rec.music.dylan after all :-) Personally I prefer "Dylan", or even
>Bob. I assure you I'll take a complicated Dylan over a simple one any
>day of the week.
>John Brennan
>is it really so bad that people on this
>board call him "zimmy", "his bobness", or my personal habit, "BD"?
>"The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter/
> was that his name wasn't Henry Porter."
Naming the beloved, naming the worshipped, is often a difficult thing. I'm
sure some people have trouble just typing the word 'Dylan' because of that
old black magic. It's a powerful word, too, in structure and appearance. No
coincidence, either, 'Dillon' doesn't have the same power. Semiotics is not
my field, but choosing that spelling had more to do with instinctive
attractions to its power than anything to do with Welsh poets, surely. Less
emotional and psychological angst involved in typing 'zimmy' or 'His
Bobness'. This seems to be an epidemic in the British music press. It often
has that sarcastic, cutting him down to size aspect, too. Like, if we make a
joke of him, he won't have so much power over us. "I do it myself, that
ain't so unreal..."
Tricia J
Subject: alt.sex.dylan???
From: Ed Ricardo (edu@edlis.org)
Date: 1995/06/12
John Howells (howells@netcom.com) wrote:
: Lo and behold. While firing up my newsreader today a whole bunch of new
: groups were added and one of them was "alt.sex.dylan". Okay, who did
: this? :-)
Wellllll, I am certainly not saying, you know what she'd do to me
if I told.
But for sites not carrying it yet, don't worry it is mighty boring.
Aging Bob Dylan groupies arguing with even more elderly Dylan Thomas
groupies about which Dylan alt.sex.dylan is about! And that woman with
the stories about Matt Dillon and the six-shooter, oh my goodness.
And Dylan Thomas is the only one not documented to have worn a Stetson
hat... So far.
And then the nerds who insist it stands for DYnamic LANguage which is more
erotic than cowpokes, poets and song and dance men. Dirty old Macs!
As if that is not enough the number of lawyers touting for palimony/
paternity business on a contingency basis, the air force man who insists
he is THE jet pilot not A jet pilot, the Tony Perkins look-alike
from Idaho, that retired Dean of Women saying she was the tenth one
to teach him to...
And the things they write! That Melinda's English is far from good to my
mind. And some are downright insulting, I mean really, "walks like a duck
and smells like a skunk" we're talking vengeful reminiscences here.
At least some of the discussion of alcohol impaired sexual response
is vaguely educational and instructive, I had not realised Matt Dillon
liked a drink?
Does anyone recall the heights mentioned of rec.music.dylan readers
wanting to be recognised at concerts? :-) Luckily we established
some time ago he does not write about sex overtly or covertly... ;-)
Ed
--
Well, I got a woman five feet short,
She yells and hollers and screams and snorts.
She tickles my nose, pats me on the head,
Rolls me over and kicks me out of bed.
(She's a man-eater
Meat grinder...
Bad loser!)
From: blawfirm@aol.com (BLawfirm)
Subject: Alias anything you want
Date: 5 Oct 1996 19:09:25 -0400
I have a half-cocked theory about the origin of Bob's name that I have
seen floated nowhere else and is just crazy enough that there might be
something to it. I'd appreciate any comments. It goes like this:
Apparently, when Bob first started using the name "Dylan," he spelled it
Dillon, "like the guy on Gunsmoke," according to someone who claims to
have known him in Minnesota and is quoted in (I think) the Scaduto
biography. In the late fifties, the Green Bay Packers had an all-pro
defensive back named Bob Dillon. Judging by the sports references in his
songs (Willie Mays, Cassius Clay, Catfish Hunter, to mention a few), Bob
would seem to have taken at least an average amount of interest in
spectator sports. As a teenager in Hibbing, Minnesota in the days before
the Minnesota Vikings, the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears would
likely have been the professional football teams, if any, that attracted
young Mr. Zimmerman's interest. It is virtually inconceivable that Bob
would have been unaware of the Packers' star defensive back when he chose
his name.
Now, I know absolutely nothing about Dillon the football player other than
that he made all-pro a couple of times. I have no reason to think that
Bob Zimmerman would have had any particular reason to honor the gentleman
by choosing his name. Perhaps he simply thought it sounded good, or just
picked the name on the spur of the moment. Even if the fellow quoted in
Scaduto is wrong, though, and Bob was always Dylan, he must have at least
been aware of the similarity in names.
Deep down, I kind of hope I'm on to something and we can put the Dylan
Thomas nonsense to bed forever.
From: Dan Mayshar (mayshar@hum.huji.ac.il)
Subject: Alias anything you want
Date: Sat, 05 Oct 1996 22:09:47 -0700
BLawfirm wrote:
>
> I have a half-cocked theory about the origin of Bob's name that I have
> seen floated nowhere else and is just crazy enough that there might be
> something to it. I'd appreciate any comments. It goes like this:
* * *
I, for one, have never heard this before, and am fascinated. The
Packers certainly commanded a great regional popularity at the time. But...
young Bob wasn't remembered by anyone to be much of a sports fan. Not to mention that Willie Mays and Cassius Clay rather transcended the sports star
slot, and that "Catfish" was Jacques Levy's idea (if memory serves). If
there was only some concrete evidence for any interest of Bob's in pro [american-rules] football, this would make a very worthy theory.
Dan Mayshar
West Jerusalem
