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Does your name date you?

Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
If you are a man named Percy, you are bound to over compensate!
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Stearmen

I'll Lock Up
Messages
7,202
I used to know Art Carr's sister, she married a guy by the name of Auto. Art was a famous supplier of cars to the movie industry!
 

BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
The originator of the comic "Blondie" was Chic Young and one of the characters played by Bud Abbot was named "Chic." Bud Abbot's actual first name was William. When I hear or see the name "Bud," I think of the little nametags on work shirts worn by mechanics. I had a first cousin who married a young girl from Puerto Rico who everyone called "Chickie," although her real name was Iris. Much later I learned that Spanish for young girl is "Chica." One of my aunts only called her Iris. That aunt was named Edith and she was married to Roy.

Another aunt of mine was named Clio or maybe Cleo, a fairly unusual name.

Although my father is from Carroll County, Virginia (named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton), I never knew a man named Carroll. But I did know one named Shirley. There was also a man living somewhere near my father who was called "June," but my father said it was short for Junior, which is itself a sort of nickname. His last name was Poe.

And speaking of nicknames, I believe it used to be common to give people, especially men and boys, nicknames in some places. Not a diminutive, as in Becky from Rebecca, but a totally different name. One of my uncles, whose name was Basil, was called Toby where he worked on the railroad. But he's the only example I can think of. I did have an uncle and a cousin, his son, who were named Thomas Theodore (the father) and Thomas Franklin (the son). I can only imagine their mother liked the Roosevelts. But the father was always called Tom, his son Tommy. He was the one who married Chickie.

I am also reminded of the song from the Glen Miller Orchestra about a new baby on the block who was named "Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones." There is also that wonderful line from Forrest Gump, "There was Dallas, from Phoenix, Cleveland - he was from Detroit; and Tex...well, I don't remember where Tex come from.

I never knowed nobody named Forrest or Tex.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,038
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
My niece had a real loser of a friend named Forrest, who was the sort of sleazy high-school Lothario who went thru girlfriends like Kleenex, and left them all blubbering emotional wrecks when he was done with them. I hope that wherever he is today he's fat, bald, and impotent.

We had a Chick in town, but he was an older gentleman. "Chick" was a common nickname in the Era for "Charles," presumably a corruption of "Chuck."

Shirley Povich, the father of greasy TV personality Maury, was a world-class sportswriter in the Era for the Washington Post.

I had twin cousins named "Biff" and "Bing," whose real names were Eugene and Edwin.

My brother-in-law -- a high-school classmate of mine -- has been known since childhood as "Butch."

My youngest cousin has been known since infancy as "Chip," but his real name is Clifford -- he was named after his grandfather, and a nickname was needed to tell the two apart. Aside from one being chubby, baldheaded, and addicted to smoking a pipe -- and the other being our grandfather -- they were identical.

I used to collect bubble-gum cards of baseball players with peculiar or unsuitable names. Foster Castleman, Odbert Hamric, Purnal Goldy, Sibby Sisti, Clyde Kluttz -- all names that brought to mind an unmistakable All-American athleticism.
 

BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
A curious phenomenon is the way you associate not only a name with both appearance and behavior as well as other thing, you do the same thing with a voice. So to some extent, the other person already might have a strike against them before you even meet them--or alternately, have a leg up on someone else. Anyway, that happens to me. And at my age, everyone you meet reminds you of someone you already know.

I believe just about everyone is gone who knew me as a baby and preschooler and in most ways, that's a good thing. In other ways, not so good. I had a baby name I wouldn't tell anyone.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
And speaking of nicknames, I believe it used to be common to give people, especially men and boys, nicknames in some places.
I never knowed nobody named Forrest or Tex.

I knew a Tex which I met in San Antonio, Texas.
kbdhe0.jpg

Mr. David L. “Tex” Hill, fighter pilot ~ AVG.

My uncles had biblical names;
Abraham, David, and Joseph.
 
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Inkstainedwretch

One Too Many
Messages
1,037
Location
United States
There was a B-movie actor named Chick Chandler. In the 50s he costarred in the tv series "Soldiers of Fortune"with John Russell. I know the SF writer Kim Stanley Robinson, who is male. I lived for a while in an area of the southern Appalachians where there was so much repetition of names that almost everyone went by childhood nicknames. When I worked on the 1980 Census I would track down a list of names that might have 20 men on it named Jerry Mullins. I'd go into some country store and ask if anybody knew where Jerry R. Mullins lived. I'd get nothing but blank looks until, inevitably, someone would say, "You think he means Skeeter?"
 

BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
I was told by an acquaintance (who married one of my old girlfriends) names Morrison that Mr. Morrison attended Clan Morrison events sometimes.
 

EngProf

Practically Family
Messages
597
Does anyone know any females from the WWII era who went by the name "Pete"? One of my aunts was named Elise, but went by the name "Pete" on a regular basis.
One of our next door neighbors went by "Pete" to the extent that I can't remember what her real name was.
 

Inkstainedwretch

One Too Many
Messages
1,037
Location
United States
Florence Lowe Barnes, pioneer aviatrix, was known to one and all as Pancho Barnes. She ran a bar for flyers frequented by the test pilots of the 40s and 50s, including the original Mercury astronauts. I have no idea how she got to be called Pancho.
 

BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
I knew a "Pete Snidow" in Princeton, West Virginia. Her husband was related (nephew, I think) to Connley Snidow, who owned the old Virginian Hotel. I dated their daughter about 40 years ago. She never married.
 

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