A note on black naming practices

[Wilson Gray]

I forgot to mention Haile Selassie Clay, called "Haley," a
contemporary of mine in Saint Louis.

-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain



On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 12:23 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: A note on black naming practices
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 6:45 AM -0500 1/2/09, Amy West wrote:
>>>Date:    Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:54:12 -0500
>>>From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>>>Subject: A note on black naming practices
>>>
>>>For all that I know, this may still be a custom. But, IAC, my mother -
>>>97 on 9 January - has informed me that *way* back in the day, it was
>>>often customary for black children to be named after *foreign*
>>>dignitaries. E.g., Cudn Pope Harrold was actually "Pope Leo [XIII]
>>>Harrold" and Cudn Hallie Prothrow. was actually "Hail Victoria
>>>Prothrow."
>>
>>The inclusion of title and salutation as well as the foreign aspect
>>is *very* interesting.
>>
>>>Probably everyone here of any level of maturity is aware of the
>>>once-extreme popularity of "Roosevelt," still alive in the name of
>>>Rosevelt[sic] Colvin of the New England Patriots. However, the most
>>>extreme instance that I know of was my Saint Louis buddy, Frank
>>>Willis, actually "Franklin Delano Roosevelt Willis."
>>
>>This was an older tradition, was it not? I know that my husband's
>>German-American family had a Grover Cleveland Jaekel and George
>>Washington Jaekel a couple generations back. (I think they were great
>>or great-great uncles.)
>
> and lest we forget, there was the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher
> Grover Cleveland Alexander (1887-1950). I have no idea of his
> ethnicity, beyond Caucasian, but he was one of 13 kids, so maybe they
> just ran out of names.
>
> LH
>
>>
>>I have to wonder if with these two cases, and the Martin Luther
>>Kings, we have not only honoring memories, but also assimilation to a
>>dominant culture going on? If so, is the foreign dignitary
>>tradition/variant doing the same thing, or is it still marking the
>>named as "different"?
>>
>>---Amy West
>>
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