The name's Bond, James Bond: 007 marks 50 years

"Fleming took the name for his character from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies; Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond's guide and he later explained to the ornithologist's wife that "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born". He further explained that: When I wrote the first one in 1953, I wanted Bond to be an extremely dull, uninteresting man to whom things happened; I wanted him to be a blunt instrument ... when I was casting around for a name for my protagonist I thought by God, (James Bond) is the dullest name I ever heard. —Ian Fleming, The New Yorker, 21 April 1962. On another occasion Fleming said: "I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers'. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure—an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department.

Craig is ok as a masculine Bond, but I still want the old style "shaken, not stirred" Bond, with cool gadgets.

More than six actors played James Bond on the big screen. They are probably overlooking, or trying to forget, the James Bond spoof film "Casino Royale" from 1967. In that movie, not only is David Niven playing Bond, he decides to rename all of the agents to James Bond to confuse the enemy. As a result, David Niven, Terence Cooper, Woody Allen, Joanna Pettet, Daliah Lavi, Peter Sellers and Ursula Andress are all named James Bond in the movie. But I guess they overlooked it because it wasn't one of the "official" movies, just like "Never Say Never Again". I love them all, but had a lot of trouble digesting the tongue-in-cheek humor of some of the Roger Moore films. Sean Connery is still my favorite Bond.