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For the collectors:
When South Africa went democratic we redrew the map of our provincial boundaries, perhaps too hastily, as now there's a bit of redrawing going on to eliminate anomalies like parts of the same town being in two provinces - one inevitably wealthier or better at service delivery than the other.
One community, in a town called Khutsong, is being transferred from a wealthier to a poorer province and is putting up spirited resistance. And in this morning's newspapers there was a photo of a woman with her cute baby son, who smiled engagingly at the camera: his official given name is Demarcation. His mother explained that this was the issue of the day when he was born, about which she felt strongly, and she chose to commemorate it in his name as a constant reminder of the times in which she lives.
She is a very impoverished lady, but word of her little boy's name has spread and local people have been giving him gifts of warm clothing etc as signs of their support. So he's doing well.
If he so chooses, I imagine he could call himself Mark one day ...
When South Africa went democratic we redrew the map of our provincial boundaries, perhaps too hastily, as now there's a bit of redrawing going on to eliminate anomalies like parts of the same town being in two provinces - one inevitably wealthier or better at service delivery than the other.
One community, in a town called Khutsong, is being transferred from a wealthier to a poorer province and is putting up spirited resistance. And in this morning's newspapers there was a photo of a woman with her cute baby son, who smiled engagingly at the camera: his official given name is Demarcation. His mother explained that this was the issue of the day when he was born, about which she felt strongly, and she chose to commemorate it in his name as a constant reminder of the times in which she lives.
She is a very impoverished lady, but word of her little boy's name has spread and local people have been giving him gifts of warm clothing etc as signs of their support. So he's doing well.
If he so chooses, I imagine he could call himself Mark one day ...
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Replies
This example serves to point out that naming children after particular events that occur around the time of their birth or conception is a worldwide phenomenon. There are several examples of Hollywood celebrities who have claimed to have named their children after the places they were conceived. When the sociologist Catherine Cameron did interviews of young parents in California several decades ago, she found that the largest number of girls named April were born in January (do the math!). And of course the names Noel and Natalie go back to naming children after being born at Christmas, Pascal goes back to naming children after being born at Easter, and Tiffany goes back to naming children after being born at Epiphany. The use of Liberty as a girls' name is today general in the USA, but if you look at the SSA year by year top 1000 lists you will see that there were two years before 2001 when Liberty made the list: 1918, the year when the USA's involvement in World War I was supposed to be "making the world safe for democracy", and 1976, the year the USA celebrated the Bicentennial of the American Revolution. I had a student a few years ago who told me her older sister was named Liberty because she was born in 1976.
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There's a long-running cartoon strip in our daily newspapers which targeted Paris Hilton last week. Large convict says "How'd you get a name like Paris anyway?", and Paris gives her conception explanation. Insignificant convict says "Wow! Same with me!" and Paris asks "So, what's your name?" The wonderful answer is "Holiday Inn" - I hope it's a joke!
Afrikaans-speaking people, or a few of them, used to go over the top with strange names: Doringdraadina (Barbed-wire-ina) to commemorate the concentration camps in the Anglo-Boer War; and Eeufesia, which looks like bad Greek but is actually "the little centenary celebration girl" (eeu = century, fees = festival) - revealing her age for ever, as the centenary was in 1938. I never met one, but my friend did; her nickname was Fissie, which sounds like and would be assumed to be Fishy.
Afrikaans-speaking people, or a few of them, used to go over the top with strange names: Doringdraadina (Barbed-wire-ina) to commemorate the concentration camps in the Anglo-Boer War; and Eeufesia, which looks like bad Greek but is actually "the little centenary celebration girl" (eeu = century, fees = festival) - revealing her age for ever, as the centenary was in 1938. I never met one, but my friend did; her nickname was Fissie, which sounds like and would be assumed to be Fishy.
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