Names With Zing

[Dave Hause]

Quintessentially American.  When I was in Germany (87-90) in Landstuhl (the
only remaining major US military hospital), we had an annual round-robin
pistol match (whose primary purpose seemed to be ensuring the visitors shot
with a hangover) with the French, German, and Belgian military hospitals and
the team lists were distinctive:  the French were obviously French names;
the German, German;  the Belgians a mix of French and German (Dutch);  but
the Americans were from about as many linguistic groups as there were team
members.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
...Until I got to high school, I had no idea of the full range of
surnames available to white people. Some quite ordinary names, such as
"Faherty," "Hoogstraet," "Yoch," "Zupez," and "Koziatek" (especially
when combined with his first name of "Kazimir") initially struck me as
so absolutely ridiculous when roll was called for the first time in
homeroom that I nearly had a heart attack from the effort involved in
surpressing my laughter. "Higginsbotham" was the strangest surname
that I had previously encountered. And this was just one guy. In high
school, I had to deal with hundreds of, to me, weirdo surnames at
once. The white people living in the hood had names like "Adams,"
"Jones" (both of which are also quite common among blacks, of course)
"Rohay," and "Rosen" and I was only six years old when I first heard
them, long before I'd drawn any conclusion as to what constituted an
"ordinary" surname.

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org