(ATLANTA) Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges is in the hot seat because of the lyrics to his controversial, new song, but what’s really bothering him these days is the stupid rap name he picked 16 years ago. Back then, he thought it was a clever play on words; now, he finds it downright embarrassing.

“I was just looking for something that went with my name, you know,” Bridges, 31, told The Peoples News. “But damn I’m walking around actually telling people that I’m Ludacris. How can I play myself like that? Brother oughtta open up a dictionary sometime.”

Bridges reminisced about the origin of his pseudonym while taking a break from promoting “Politics (Obama is Here),” a song that praises Barack Obama, while denigrating Hillary Clinton, George Bush and John McCain.

While rappers often choose ridiculous names—’Puffy’ and ‘50 Cent’ come to mind—‘Ludacris’ is one of the worst. The word is a homophone of ‘ludicrous,’ which is defined as ‘laughable’ or ‘obviously absurd.’

“Maybe that’s why he spelled it wrong,” muses Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson, who went on to blame Bill Cosby for the misspelling.

Bridges had considered other monikers that incorporated either ‘Chris’ or ‘Bridges,’ like ‘Chrispy Fried Chicken’ and ‘Bridge and Tunnel.’ But on a fateful Atlanta day in 1992, he settled on Ludacris.

“I think I had heard Mike Tyson say it,” Bridges recalls. “That should have been my first clue something wasn’t right with it. I shoulda called myself something like Awwdayshus, you know?”

Old friends say they stopped hanging out with Bridges because the nickname led to embarrassing scenes at nightclubs. Bridges insisted on being introduced by it.

“If you was trying to talk to some honey, you would hope Chris wouldn’t walk in. If he saw you, you could just hang it up,” said Scotty Mitchell. “He’d come over and even if you told the girl his name was Chris, he’d lean in and be like ‘I’m actually Ludacris.’ The girl would just start laughing and that’d be it.”

After Bridges became famous, however, it didn’t matter what he called himself in front of women.

Still, he laments how his name has helped confuse a generation.

“When I talk to kids, I let them know that it’s great being Ludacris but it’s not so good being ludicrous,” Bridges said. “I don’t think they get it.”

© 2008 The Peoples News

"Brother oughtta open up a dictionary sometime.”