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The famous singer Screamin' Jay Hawkins' first name was Jalacy. He was born 1929 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Does anyone know the origin of Jalacy? Is it an invented name?
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Though invented names would have been more unusual back in 1929 or 1930, this may be the best interpretation here, because this person is the ONLY Jalacy listed anywhere in United States census records listed on Ancestry.com. In the 1940 census he is listed as a "welfare child" living in the home of Edith Randolph in Cleveland. His mother was born in Washington, DC and his father in Ohio, according to that census.
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I've looked up the name, or tried to, but I couldn't find anything behind the name's meaning. It's likely it could be an invented name, perhaps a combination of names or sounds his mother made up. BTW, it sounds exactly like the word jealousy, or at least that's how I've been saying it. Ot is it ja-lay-see?
It's possible that Jalacy might have been based on jalousie, a type of window patented in 1901; the name comes from the French word jalousie (pr. zhal-loo-zee; https://forvo.com/search/jalousie/fr/); which means "jealous" in French; however in English, the word is pronounced exactly like jealousy. Perhaps his mother (or whoever named him) was inspired by that but spelled it by sound (Jalacy instead of Jalousie). That's just a guess, though, nothing concrete behind it.
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It's possible that Jalacy might have been based on jalousie, a type of window patented in 1901; the name comes from the French word jalousie (pr. zhal-loo-zee; https://forvo.com/search/jalousie/fr/); which means "jealous" in French; however in English, the word is pronounced exactly like jealousy. Perhaps his mother (or whoever named him) was inspired by that but spelled it by sound (Jalacy instead of Jalousie). That's just a guess, though, nothing concrete behind it.
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This message was edited 5/29/2020, 1:19 AM
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I recently came an article about Jalousie 'Tango Tzigane', the name of a tango written by a Danish composer in 1925 and which seems to have become a popular hit worldwide, so it could be possible that the name was inspired by the song but with a different spelling.
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