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ArchivesRe: Origin of Tondelayo
in reply to a message by Walter Mathews
My name is Tondelayo. I am half african american, 1/4 cherokee Indian & 1/4 Puerto Rican. My mother is african american and my father half & half. I searched what my name means and through my information I found that my name is Cherokee and it means priceless as in a jewel. I myself would still like further information on my name.
Tondelayo Lynch aka Tayo
Tondelayo Lynch aka Tayo
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So an update...I have finally gotten the most accurate details of my background from blood relatives. We are Cherokee Indian 100% on maternal and paternal sides. My father is Puerto Rican. There is an Irish great great grandfather who married my great great grandmother and they had three children together. He wanted to take the children while she should go on the Trail of Tears but she fled with the children to New York. My mother loved strange and different things my Aunts say and choosing original names were her thing. My name came from the Hedy Lamarr movie and was popular in 1969 and 1970.
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this may be of interest;
they just recovered the remains of a member of the Tuskegee Airmen
the 7/27/18 article in the Washington Post shows members of the squad posing in front of a fighter plane with the name Tondelayo written on the fuselage
they just recovered the remains of a member of the Tuskegee Airmen
the 7/27/18 article in the Washington Post shows members of the squad posing in front of a fighter plane with the name Tondelayo written on the fuselage
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Cleveland Kent Evans (Authenticated as clevelandkentevans)
Date: July 25, 2011 at 7:37:42 AM
Reply to: origin for name by Tondeleyo
Tondeleyo is a name which was invented for a character in a play first produced in London in 1923 called White Cargo, written by Leon Gordon. The play was then made into a famous film with actress Hedy Lamarr playing the character Tondelayo in 1942.
Though the play was based on a novel called Hell's Playground by Ida Vera Simonton, the character is not called Tondeleyo in the novel and so the name was probably invented by Leon Gordon. The character is a half-European half-African woman and the story is set in West Africa around 1910. Gordon seems to have just made up the name from whole cloth as it doesn't really resemble most West African names that I've seen. In the movie the character played by Hedy Lamarr is said to be "half Egyptian and half Arab", and the setting is so vague that a lot of viewers didn't even realize it was supposed to be Africa, and so it's often remembered as having been set in Polynesia -- which is why you will see a few references that wrongly list Tondelayo as a Polynesian name.
The spelling was Tondeleyo in the play, but most references to the film spell it Tondelayo. The variations with -a at the end come simply from parents assimilating the name they heard to what seemed like a more normal "feminine" ending.
Date: July 25, 2011 at 7:37:42 AM
Reply to: origin for name by Tondeleyo
Tondeleyo is a name which was invented for a character in a play first produced in London in 1923 called White Cargo, written by Leon Gordon. The play was then made into a famous film with actress Hedy Lamarr playing the character Tondelayo in 1942.
Though the play was based on a novel called Hell's Playground by Ida Vera Simonton, the character is not called Tondeleyo in the novel and so the name was probably invented by Leon Gordon. The character is a half-European half-African woman and the story is set in West Africa around 1910. Gordon seems to have just made up the name from whole cloth as it doesn't really resemble most West African names that I've seen. In the movie the character played by Hedy Lamarr is said to be "half Egyptian and half Arab", and the setting is so vague that a lot of viewers didn't even realize it was supposed to be Africa, and so it's often remembered as having been set in Polynesia -- which is why you will see a few references that wrongly list Tondelayo as a Polynesian name.
The spelling was Tondeleyo in the play, but most references to the film spell it Tondelayo. The variations with -a at the end come simply from parents assimilating the name they heard to what seemed like a more normal "feminine" ending.
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