names
Pictured above, my landlord, Mr. Ford Larkin. I don't know the mule's name.
Courtesy of the University of Tampere
Regional and Ethnic Names:
? The South: Billy Bob, Jimmy Jack, Johnny Joe, Mary Lou, Sarah Anne; Bubba, Buford, Beauregard
? Black southern names of the late 1800s: Pearl, Ruby, Vaseline, Oleomargaret
? Current (primarily) Black names: LaVonne, LaToya, LeVar, Latrell, Aloicious, etc.
? Caricatured Black names: Rastus and Liza, Sam(bo), Tom, Toby
? Rural or 'hick' names: Elmer, Homer, Jud, Lester, Clem, Roy, Hank, Jethro . . .
posted by emory at 12:45 AM
5 Comments:
these people are academics and academics are always right?
I have never met anyone named Vaseline or Oleomargaret.
I did once meet a Brontarious.
Bill, speaking as an academic I can confirm that academics are often wrong. (Or maybe I'm wrong to say that...) But I do hope they're on to something good here, the poetry of names. Anyway, maybe the Vaselines and Oleomargarets have died out.
But there are many more great southern names. My Arkansas grandma was named Ida, and she named her kids Eustace, Roma, and Noel. Excellent!
Emory: I have never met anyone with the names Vaseline or Oleomargaret either. Maybe because the article says those were popular names from the late 1800s. How many people do you know that were born in the late 1800s?
I knew a solid handful of 1800's people...
To the first Anonymous; I love you. I was about to respond to what emory said with the exact same thing you wrote--almost verbatim.
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