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ArchivesTime for Fun: Equivocal, Politically-Incorrect and Inappropriate Names Contest!
Today's challenge is to compile a list of *actual* names that have ambiguous / eyebrow-raisin'/ hilarious etymologies, such as Coit and Bordelia!
Please post your lists, winners will earn valuable prizes!
(For starters, check out: www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.htm )
Please post your lists, winners will earn valuable prizes!
(For starters, check out: www.snopes.com/racial/language/names.htm )
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In South Africa there are so many naming traditions they can sprain the brightest brain. Our Afrikaans-speaking namers are often particularly kre8iv; read on ...
First, a brief history lesson: whether from conviction or just feeling that my enemy's enemy is my friend, there was considerable support for Hitler's Germany from (some of) the Afrikaans community before and during WWII. In the fifties, we had a minister of foreign affairs (Eric Louw) who named his son Izan, thereby making the unfortunate child a backward Nazi (well, weren't they all ...?)
And another: as I understand it, Americans who crossed the plains in covered wagons did it from sound capitalist motives; our equivalent was for political reasons - basically, to get as far away from the English (the new colonial power - the Dutch hadn't bothered about the place much when it was theirs). So, off they went in oxwagons. An oxwagon is an (AW-se-vah). In due course, war came with the English; for various reasons, none of 'em good, Afrikaner women and children were interned in concentration camps (they provided r and r for their soldier menfolk if left on the farms which they couldn't work properly, etc) where diseases were rife and the death rate appallingly high. OK. Such camps got surrounded archetypically with barbed wire, then a newish invention. Barbed wire is (DOO-er-ung-draht).
So, then, the 100th anniversary of the Great Trek (the covered-wagon lads and lasses) came in 1938 - a good time for feeling sentimental, Germanic and anti-English. Centenary celebration = (EEYOU-fearss).
With me so far, gentle reader? Then it won't surprise you that there was a bumper crop of little girls, that year, named Eeufesia, Ossewania and Doringdradina.
Let's fast-forward to the sixties, when the black liberation movements were gaining confidence and a measure of white support. One man, white and Anglo, was tried and imprisoned for treason (= supporting the black majority) - he and a fellow prisoner managed to escape, never been clear how; anyway, this was all over the newspapers etc and we all understood that his daughter was named Amandla, with an L - it means Power and the slogan was Power to the people. , more or less. Years later she applied for a passport and it turned out that she had been boring old Amanda all the time!
First, a brief history lesson: whether from conviction or just feeling that my enemy's enemy is my friend, there was considerable support for Hitler's Germany from (some of) the Afrikaans community before and during WWII. In the fifties, we had a minister of foreign affairs (Eric Louw) who named his son Izan, thereby making the unfortunate child a backward Nazi (well, weren't they all ...?)
And another: as I understand it, Americans who crossed the plains in covered wagons did it from sound capitalist motives; our equivalent was for political reasons - basically, to get as far away from the English (the new colonial power - the Dutch hadn't bothered about the place much when it was theirs). So, off they went in oxwagons. An oxwagon is an (AW-se-vah). In due course, war came with the English; for various reasons, none of 'em good, Afrikaner women and children were interned in concentration camps (they provided r and r for their soldier menfolk if left on the farms which they couldn't work properly, etc) where diseases were rife and the death rate appallingly high. OK. Such camps got surrounded archetypically with barbed wire, then a newish invention. Barbed wire is (DOO-er-ung-draht).
So, then, the 100th anniversary of the Great Trek (the covered-wagon lads and lasses) came in 1938 - a good time for feeling sentimental, Germanic and anti-English. Centenary celebration = (EEYOU-fearss).
With me so far, gentle reader? Then it won't surprise you that there was a bumper crop of little girls, that year, named Eeufesia, Ossewania and Doringdradina.
Let's fast-forward to the sixties, when the black liberation movements were gaining confidence and a measure of white support. One man, white and Anglo, was tried and imprisoned for treason (= supporting the black majority) - he and a fellow prisoner managed to escape, never been clear how; anyway, this was all over the newspapers etc and we all understood that his daughter was named Amandla, with an L - it means Power and the slogan was Power to the people. , more or less. Years later she applied for a passport and it turned out that she had been boring old Amanda all the time!
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Its pathetic when people name their kids so as to win political brownie-points!
In Greece, therfe are quite a few Lenins and Stalins, all born in the late 1940s of communists parents. Marxist-chic names abound in several former communist-bloc countries, including Vladilen/a (from Lenin), Titoslav/a, Titomir/a, Staljingradka, Komsomolka (Komsa), Ruska, Vjazma, Sutjeska, Neretva, Petoletka (five year plan), and pythonesque names such as Traktor/ka (sic!) as well as a -- hold on to your hats! -- an Aremenian name meaning "five year plan completed in four years." (check out http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/kokkalis/GSW2/Aleksov.PDF) :P
hetic
Traktor" in the height of proletarian aesthetic, as well as obsequious party adulators who named their twins Vladlen and Vladlena to earn socialist brownie-points Five-Year-Plan
In Greece, therfe are quite a few Lenins and Stalins, all born in the late 1940s of communists parents. Marxist-chic names abound in several former communist-bloc countries, including Vladilen/a (from Lenin), Titoslav/a, Titomir/a, Staljingradka, Komsomolka (Komsa), Ruska, Vjazma, Sutjeska, Neretva, Petoletka (five year plan), and pythonesque names such as Traktor/ka (sic!) as well as a -- hold on to your hats! -- an Aremenian name meaning "five year plan completed in four years." (check out http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/kokkalis/GSW2/Aleksov.PDF) :P
hetic
Traktor" in the height of proletarian aesthetic, as well as obsequious party adulators who named their twins Vladlen and Vladlena to earn socialist brownie-points Five-Year-Plan
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Oops! Forgive my editing disaster :P
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Would these "valuable prizes" include any made of fiberglass and related to "The Shining"? And does that artifact still hang on the wall of Nephele's room?
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I'm recycling this one, but it was mine originally, so T.S.!
Fifteen years ago, the mayor of the town of Auburn in rural western Kentucky was an old gentleman named Glover Washer. His wife, a pleasant and genteel lady, bore the unfortunate name of "Fanny Washer".
It got some chuckles here, but I understand it would have been a bit more rude in Oz and the UK!
- Da.
Fifteen years ago, the mayor of the town of Auburn in rural western Kentucky was an old gentleman named Glover Washer. His wife, a pleasant and genteel lady, bore the unfortunate name of "Fanny Washer".
It got some chuckles here, but I understand it would have been a bit more rude in Oz and the UK!
- Da.
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Assuming that I'm assuming correctly ... how's your Rugby? A few years ago there was a huge prop forward, Mr William Somebody, who played for Scotland, and the French at that time had a player, also a large lad, who was m. Condom. So a poster was painted when the two sides med: Our Willie is bigger than your Condom ...
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...which reminds me of an old story my dad used to say: During WWII, soldiers protected their rifles from rain and cold by placing condoms on the barrels. According to the story, Winston Churchill personally ordered the production of huge condoms for such use, and had them stamped with: "Size Medium, made in England".
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There is a "Spermo" in the new list of names from Greek mythology that I just added to the namesakes page.
http://www.behindthename.com/namesakes/greekmyth.html
I seem to be the only entrant, so what's my prize? ;)
http://www.behindthename.com/namesakes/greekmyth.html
I seem to be the only entrant, so what's my prize? ;)
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