Despite the billion-dollar business of college football, the NFL draft introduces the world to dozens of players who managed to evade the highlight reels and awards ceremonies their entire careers. In addition to these new batches of formerly anonymous players, the draft always introduces some wild new names into the modern lexicon.
Moving against today's eco-friendly culture, we saw DeForest chosen in the first round. He is joined in the pro ranks by many fellow Dees: De'Vondre, Deiondre', Devontae, and Devante. These exotic handles make the pair of DeAndre's and Demarcus' sound downright vanilla.
We had some near-misses where the names almost spelled something recognizable. Laremy, Xavien, Juston, Jayron, Jerell, Kalan, Kavon, Kevon, Antwione, Elandan, and even Tyreek can all claim partial credit. A'Shawn, Shon, and Leshaun join an already prodigious group of Seans.
With the current societal attention called to the Muslims in our midst, it was no surprise that we welcomed Jihad, Hassan, and Maliek into the NFL. I would like to think Charone draws his name from Dante's infamous boat rower, but that connection is nebulous. Pharoh and Marqui are also slight variations on historical royalty. Kenyan does not pull any punches, as his moniker gets straight to the point.
Finally, we have the true outliers. Philosophers will scratch their chins as they ponder these peregrine cognomen. Kamalei and KeiVarae roll off the tongue like ebony and ebony. Does Temarrick use turmeric supplements? Quoth Le'Raven, nevermore. Rounding out the peculiar are Yannick, Shilique, Tajae, Jakeem, Jatavis, Leonte, Cardale, Vadal, and Fahn. This leaves me with my favorite wacky name of the 2016 NFL Draft, Dadi Lhomme, which as far as I can interpret is a Creole version of "Daddy Man."