I AM NOT Mike Kitay. I was born Melvin Kitay. No, not even. I was born Melvin Kitayewitz. My father changed it when I was three or four, before I started school. (I had my witz about me very briefly.)
My middle name was always “NONE.”
I hated Melvin. Such a dorky name, at least in Kearny, New Jersey (pop. 38,040). I was the only Melvin in my class. In my school. In my town? There was Melvyn Douglas, of course (though he spelled it differently); Mel Tourmé, the crooner (though he abbreviated it), Mel Ott, the Giants' star centerfielder (he did, too), and the antisemite Mel Gibson (ditto); and Mel Brooks, né Melvin Kaminsky (who changed first and last). That's five; only five. In my day, in my world, there was one, only one. I would have preferred Tom or Dick or Harry—an ordinary name. A Gentile name. I didn't want to be different. Being Jewish in Kearny was different enough.
In 1952, my senior year at Rutgers, I was awarded a National Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, and after getting a deferment (the Korean War was going on, and I'd been in, a student ship bound for Belgium. On board was the University of Iowa Girls' Marching Band, and when the first girl I met asked me my name, I hesitated (two, three, four) and then, to my everlasting amazement, out popped “Mike.” Not Michael, not Tom, Dick, or Harry, just plain Mike. I had never seriously thought about what name I would choose if, God willing, I weren't Melvin; it was spontaneous, completely spontaneous. Like a belch, as it were.
