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Friday, July 21, 2006

What's in a name? 

By Charlottesvillain at 7/21/2006 11:50:00 AM
The names people give their children are a never ending source of dismay. In his classic ballad "Boy Named Sue," Johnny Cash sang of a father intentionally giving his son a girl's name so he would have to grow up to be tough.

But really, I think this is taking things a bit too far. It is true he is a linebacker, but come on.

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7 Comments:

By Blogger GreenmanTim, at Fri Jul 21, 12:23:00 PM:

Lord have mercy.

Overheard in the henhouse, from one chicken to another: "any cockle do, any doodle do."  

By Anonymous Anonymous, at Fri Jul 21, 12:42:00 PM:

I wonder if that's pronounced anything like "lucius". As in "lucius malfoy". Mmm... evil...  

By Blogger Chris, at Fri Jul 21, 04:38:00 PM:

Well, he better steer clear of the mascot, Prowler. Panthers can smell Pusey a mile away.

I am so looking forward to this season.  

By Blogger Assistant Village Idiot, at Sat Jul 22, 12:10:00 AM:

Ima and Ura Pig are an urban legend, but the Hogg family, which was (and is) among the social elite in Houston, did famously have an "Ima."

American subcultures which do not have infant baptism or other religious customs related to naming tend to have much more unusual names. William Raspberry has suggested that it is badly fragmenting for African American culture that children do not share names with people from previous generations, which can help give a sense of continuity and belonging. Sounds plausible.  

By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sat Jul 22, 04:37:00 AM:

I knew a guy who had some severe birth defects. His family named him Overcomer.  

By Blogger TigerHawk, at Sat Jul 22, 07:50:00 AM:

AVI, Rasberry's theory doesn't do much for me, particularly because of the counterexample of the Jews, who do not name their children after any living ancestor. And nobody thinks Jews have a fragmented family structure.  

By Anonymous Anonymous, at Sat Jul 22, 09:43:00 AM:

TigerHawk, AVI states that Raspberry claims that African-American children do not share names with previous generations, not with previous living generations -- a difference there. Granted that longer lifetimes and earlier child-bearing may mean that a name is not "recycled" for three or four generations, the continuity is still there.

Moreover, whilst Ashkenazim (Jews of northern/eastern European ancestry) do not name children after living relatives, Sephardim (Jews of Iberian ancestry) and Mizrahim (Jews of Middle Eastern ancestry) often do. Check Hasidic rabbinic "dynasties", and see how a few names are repeated.  

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