Kinsella Clan Keeps Growing

No no, we’re done having kids. None of this prepper “have a ton of kids” stuff.

Kinsella is for me an interesting name to have inherited (literally, as I’m adopted). It’s not too weird, hard to spell, or ethnic, yet not too common here in the US. Every now and then someone says “say, Kinsella, as in Ray Kinsella, from Field of Dreams“? Yep. Or Sophie Kinsella of Confessions of a Shopaholic—? Yep, but hers is a ‘nym. There’s WP Kinsella, related somehow to that baseball lore of Field of Dreams fame. I can’t keep it straight.

As far as I can tell the Kinsellas came from some county in Ireland. When I visited Ireland as a law student I did see Kinsella sometimes, so it’s more common there than in the US. Apparently it’s rooted in some gaelic thing like “Cinnsealach” or something hard to remember and to care about. Apparently the “same” as Tinsley or Kinsley or Kinsel. Whatever that means—to be “the same”. But apparently they all mean “unclean head.” That’s right, I’m a “dirty-head”.

Since people are stupid they can’t tell the difference between Stephen, Steven, Stefan, and Stephan. And Steffen and Steffond, and so on. So over the years, well, there are enough Kinsellas so that there are some Stephens out there. No Stephans as far as I can tell, but people are too stupid too tell the difference. After all, a and e used to be the same letter, hence the dipthong æ. Or something.

So as my career progressed as did my notoriety in free market/libertarian circles, and on the Internet, occasionally I became aware of a couple of other Kinsellas who were similarly-named: a couple of Stephens. Not Stephan but close enough for regular people to think it’s the same. One is an antitrust (competition) lawyer in Europe, Stephen Kinsella. Another is an economic journalist in Ireland. We’ve talked from time to time. Sometimes we get each other’s emails. We help each other out.

The Irish Economist one, Stephen Kinsella, occasionally receives emails meant for me [stephen.kinsella@ul.ie; Stephen Kinsella, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Economics, University of Limerick, Ireland; see e.g. his bitcoin comment here]. Why? Because people can’t tell e from a. He got one meant for me from Southwest Airlines last year about one of my flights, and helpfully sent it to me. And just a few months ago he received a paper from an anarchist from PorcFest meant for me, but sent to him by accident, which he sent on to me. And he told me: “I’m the Irish economist one. The Irish journalist one was actually one of my students, just to make it more confusing.”

And there is another guy, Nate Kinsella, I think he’s some kind of artist in New York, who gets my emails occasionally, since his is nkinsella@ gmail and mine is nskinsella@gmail, and he graciously forwards them on to me. He’s helped a brother out a few times.

I mean, look, I have this haunting feeling I am the only libertarian Kinsella. Let’s not be fooled by similar surnames. After all, my original surname was Doiron. So… I mean come on. If my brother, sister, and parents are not libertarian, why should these Euro-Kinsellas be? However, I will say my wife and son are pretty damn libertarian. At least I have some influence over them.

Anyway the latest entrant into the Kinsellaverse: someone named Eileen Kinsella, reporting on some copyright-related lawsuit in Australia.

I have half-a-mind to wrangle some of these Kinsellas into a libertarian-themed podcast interview just to see what a disaster it might be.

Update: Stephen Kinsella’s I am Not