Winkfield

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

Jimmy Winkfield (1882 - 1974)

Have you wondered about my name, Winkfield? Come on, admit it. The name “Winkfield” doesn’t roll off the tongue. Nor is it a top contender for most popular name for baby boys. Where, oh where, did this interesting name come from? And what does Artificial Intelligence (AI) have to say about the matter?

Well, for starters, do you see the man in the above image? Yes, that man. His name was Jimmy Winkfield and he hailed from Lexington, Kentucky. Winkfield was an amazing horse jockey. He was the last black American to win the Kentucky Derby. And he was the Russian Champion Jockey three times.

Here’s the punch line — there is zero connection between me and the famous Jimmy Winkfield. No there, there. As a little kid, I would play around with classmates in junior high school and hint that, well, we must be related. Nope.

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The real story is much more mundane. For whatever reason lost to the mist of time, my great grandfather named a son Winkfield. Your guess is as good as mine as to why. Since we Twymans are a traditional sort, we tend to pass along names down the generations. My grandfather, James Twyman, honored his brother Winkfield by naming a son Winkfield. My Dad insisted in the hospital that I be named Winkfield to carry on the family tradition. And I made it a non-negotiable matter that my first born son would be named Winkfield. So, there you go — four generations of a name in one family.

Tradition, it is what we do in my family.

I recall stories about my great uncle Winkfield. Known as “Uncle Winky,” he lived in New Haven, Connecticut where he dabbled in real estate. He had a sense of humor as he would arrive with fan fare at my uncle’s place in Midlothian, Chesterfield County, Virginia on family visits. Always ready with a joke and a tall tale. Uncle Winky served in World War I. As a prank, he registered and enrolled in the army as a white man. Psych, I imagine my great uncle Winky thinking. (There was lots of passing going around in the family in the 1900s. Well, not a lot but I can think of eight family members who passed for white and/or hispanic without thinking too hard.) Uncle Winky had his fun before returning to the world of us black relations/smile.

When Uncle Winky passed away in 1974, my Dad and I had hopes we would be remembered in the will since we were both namesakes. Nope and nada. Not a dime which was just as well. It is not a good look to be hoping for an inheritance due to a shared name. It is best for one to make it on one’s own.

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A name is one’s passport in life. A name shapes how one is perceived by the world and how one perceives oneself. I never understand how some parents just throw letters against the wall and pick a name out of a hat. In my family, names are solemn and sacred affairs. The question is naturally raised, how does the world perceive a “Winkfield?” How does a “Winkfield” perceive himself?

I went to the source. I asked Chat GPT-4.

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Chat GPT-4 broke my name apart into its two components — “Wink” and “Field.” Wink “suggests subtlety, playfulness, hidden communication, even secret knowledge or subversive signaling.” Hmmn. Interesting. Field “evokes openness, space, scholarship, battle, or cultivation.” I can feel the vibe here.

“Together, Winkfield might conjure someone who operates with subtle influence or subtext, navigates multiple fields of subtext, and occupies or bridges both the public and hidden realms. It’s a name with tension between the playful and the professional, the cryptic and the cultivated.”

I recognize parts of myself in this description. I prefer the subtle to the blunt. I love nuance and complexity. I am a wise elder who loves to play around. Nonetheless, and as my all too wise wife suggested, might this description be like reading a horoscope? One can read into the description whatever one imagines. I would also add that the causal connection is not clear to me. Am I playful in spirit because of my name, or, because I was just born this way, regardless of my name?

I asked Chat GPT-4 what might a Winkfield gravitate towards as a life’s work? The answers were interesting. According to the AI, “Wink” implies coded communication, metaphor, and layered meaning. Ideal callings would include essayist (raised eyebrow), novelist (double raised eyebrow) or poet, satirist or political commentator, and interviewer or podcaster. All those things in a simple four-letter name.

AI delivered more detail for me. “Field” evokes scholarship, research and intellectual breadth. As a former law professor, I recognized the careers populated by “Fields”: Professor, Historian, Cultural Critic, Interdisciplinary Theorist.

And there was more. AI combined Wink + Field together and pulled out a calling for diplomacy or intelligence work. My name seemed heaven sent for work as a diplomat, an intelligence analyst, a cultural attaché, or a negotiator/mediator. Spot on, I would say given my personality.

I’m a creative. I have more ideas than days in the week for essays. AI zeroed in on my name, Winkfield, as well-suited for creative professions with a rhetorical edge. Screen writer, art director and performance artist with a conceptual bent. Little did I suspect my very name bespoke a life as Adrian Piper.

My wife long ago consigned me to the ranks of the Black Elite. Several years ago, I met a very dark-skinned and attractive black Republican at the doctor’s office. I was my usual friendly self. After several conversations, she remarked I was the most elitist black man she had ever met! I wasn’t sure where that observation came from but might it have come from my name? AI suspects so.

According to AI, to be named Winkfield carries implicit egotism. “Someone named Winkfield might see themselves as unique, refined, possibly under-the-radar.” They “feel drawn to sophisticated or subversive forms of expression.” (Yes, I subvert dogma and slogan words at every opportunity.) A Winkfield has “an intuitive sense of occupying multiple realms—public/private, serious/playful, tradition/innovation.” (I can see parts of me in this description.) A person named Winkfield “might resist mainstream conformity, preferring thoughtful distinction over attention-seeking. (This assessment sums me up well.)

Conclusion: The best way to conclude this light and playful essay is to compare two opposing camps. On the one hand, AI with great gravity states “Winkfield” is a name that suggests the cultivator of subtext, the gentle provocateur, or the interdisciplinary thinker operating just slightly to the left of center. If nominative determinism nudges us toward lives that “fit” our names, then Winkfield was perhaps always meant for law, literature, diplomacy, or intellectual inquiry — where meaning is never one layer deep.

On the other hand, my wife of over thirty years declared this idea of nominative determinism misses the point. A name is chosen by the parents. So, the name says far more about the parents and the parent’s aspiration for a child than what the name means to the child or how the world perceives the child. I love my wife’s name but my wife does not. Did my in-laws choose wisely a name that would attract a future suitor drawn in by a Dutch name that means scholar? Did my Dad choose a name that would attract someone lured by dreamy idealism and lyrical expression? As always, I have more questions than answers this evening.

“The first thing you get in life is a name…Names are powerful, and often so powerful that they can influence how we perceive the world around us. We have a tool at our fingertips that can truly alter…entire generations ...”

Winkfield, England