Family Name Puzzle

by John P. Pratt
8 Mar 2014

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Here's a puzzle with each of my 24 grandchildren's names spelled either backward or forward in a sentence (ignoring spaces and punctuation). Can you find them all? They do not appear as individual words, but are hidden by being combined with other words. For example, "Zac" and "May" in the first sentence are not allowed. All names have at least three letters, and all with only three or four letters appear twice in the sentence.

  1. Just Zac, Alvin, and Floyd may go.
  2. Okay, leer at me if you must!
  3. How was a taxi van able to navigate such narrow streets? [the name appears twice!]
  4. Now the blue jay denounced his enemy.
  5. Just the deer were edible. [the name appears twice!]
  6. Uncle Joe, can we rely totally on him?
  7. Let Neil, a tanned man, work in the sun.
  8. I made lines in the sand.
  9. Even Stella, Liz, and Ben were happy.
  10. My earache left.
  11. After the lab, Ray denied it all.
  12. Ruth made a tasty limeade.
  13. Yes, I studied java longer than I wanted.
  14. Just then the rash lynx pounced too soon.
  15. A May and June vacation sounds best.
  16. Remember to check, else you'll be sorry.
  17. Even Beth and Lulu forgot.
  18. Deanna, my sister, ran by Ma. [the name appears twice!]
  19. Just Alma gets to go.
  20. Ollie, Zac, Lara, and Jim left.
  21. Six retaliated.
  22. Ella: "Uh, so Joe could win?"
  23. Pat addressed me as "sir", a kind word indeed.
  24. He knew Sam meant to have them make them mad. [Last the best of all the game: the name appears three times!]

Answers (some are really unusual names!)