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The Name Game

On-Air Challenge: You are given the first names of famous people and must figure out their last names. The last two letters of the first name, when reversed, are the first two letters of the last name. For example, given "Brad," the answer would be "Davis," as in Brad Davis, the actor.

Last Week's Challenge: From listener Steve Baggish of Littleton, Mass.: Think of a nine-letter word naming a venue for certain sports. Three letters in the word are repeated. Remove all the repetitions, and the remaining six letters can be rearranged to name a piece of sports equipment. What are these two words?

Answer: Racetrack, racket

Winner: Jefferson Ranck of Portland, Ore.

Next Week's Challenge:Think of a familiar three-word phrase in the form "___ and ___". If you remove the "and" and put the second word in front of the first word, you get a compound word naming a place of power. Hint: The compound word has nine letters. What is the three-word phrase, and what place of power is this?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to next week's challenge, submit it here. Listeners who submit correct answers win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: Include a phone number where we can reach you Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

NPR's Puzzlemaster Will Shortz has appeared on Weekend Edition Sunday since the program's start in 1987. He's also the crossword editor of The New York Times, the former editor of Games magazine, and the founder and director of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (since 1978).