KEITH MORRIS BY KEITH MORRIS X 71

Introduction and Background to the project
I have for as long as I can remember been fascinated by my name. "Keith Morris" is not an exotic name, but neither is it a common name. It confers both familiarity and a degree of exclusivity. It is a name which is anonymous - it reveals little or nothing of the persons nationality, age, class, status or language . It is a name incapable of being reduced, compressed or modified. If your name is ,say, William you have the options to be called Bill, Billy, Will, Willy or William, depending on the situation and the level of formality.. Keiths are just Keith and have to remain so. This project will be a comprehensive and complete survey of all the Keith Morris's living in Wales . The starting point for the survey was a trawl through the telephone directories, calling all entries under K. Morris. Many of these entries were for Ken, Katherine, Kevin, Karen, Kieron, Kerry or even Kurt. About one in five were Keith
To date I have managed to contact 71 Keith Morris's , from the telephone directories and from talking to some of the other Keith Morris's [my fascination with my name seems to be contagious] . The second phase involved feeding the media and press with information , with the aim of getting local and national coverage for the project and so drawing in other Keith Morris's who are not listed in the phone books (perhaps because they aren't on the phone; the phone is in someone else's name; they live in hostels or other homes; they are too young to be on the phone; or for any other reason). I would love to have as wide an age range as possible even including babies and young children.[this project could be never ending!] I anticipate that the final number of contacts will be somewhere between 75 and 80 . Small enough to be manageable as a self contained project but large enough for the results to be interesting and possibly significant . So far the response from those that have been contacted has been very encouraging. Only two have so far refused outright to take part although the wives of one or two will need a little more coaxing before they are finally persuaded that this is not some elaborate scheme by some crazy Jeremy Beadle-like character. On the whole the other Keith Morris are as curious as to who I am as I am curious about them.
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This Keith Morris is 36, an economist and town planner by training, who turned photographer in his 20's. 'The project gets me back to concerns about the nature of society.I am using my name to sample a group who have nothing in common apart from the name. Keith Morris is not a rare exotic name, but neither is it as common as, say, Dai Jones. It is both familiar and limited. It has a cultural significance. It is anonymous in that it does not reveal class status or linguistic background as would names like Algernon Q Fortesque or Idwal ap Siencyn. It has no dimunutive, as Williams are Bills or Wills. Keith is just plain Keith.
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