Welcome to the Backwoods!

[pegasus2o5.livejournal.com]

My family is from backwoods Alabama and I wanted to share some of the awesomely awful names dangling in my family tree. :) I love my family but sometimes I want to just ask "Where did you get this name?" Here are all the names, "normal" and non, of my grandparents and their siblings, and a few spouses. We're white, for what that's worth--it makes a big difference with naming norms in the South.

Mom's side of the family:
Denzil Dewey
Unita (f)
Gleason (m)
Lavene (m) (goes by Pete)
Valerus (m) (went by his last name, Floyd)
Evelyn Dorris (called Dorris, prn DAR-is)
John
Edgar
Marzella
Lena Kate (goes by Kate)
Brian
Walker (m)
Ollie Belle (f)
Bera (prn Beer-ah) (f)
Agnes
Mavis (f)
Leona
Joseph Clayton, called JC
Gladys
Ola

Dad's side of the family:
Charles Mina (mostly called Mina, prn MY-na) (m)
Willie Gay (called Gay) (female)
Melda (f)
Allen
Durrell (I was 15 before I realized this wasn't spelled Durail.) (m)
another Evelyn
Lula
Isabell (prn more like Izzabull)
Lavelle (f)
Annie Mae
Ishmer (m)

Comments

[arbus.livejournal.com]

um ok well lets see, i do like...

evelyn
kate
ollie (for a boy, short for oliver)
willie (again, for a boy)
annie mae

[pegasus2o5.livejournal.com]

I actually like Evelyn as well, though I don't know if I could use, it has a pretty ingrained "old lady" connotation for me, understandably enough. I like Kate, too. I don't like Ollie or Willie, on a boy or a girl!

Annie Mae was my grandmother. I think the name is cute, in a very cornpone kind of way. She was always a little embarrassed of it, which is funny to me because she was the ultimate Annie Mae--she was a farmer's wife, spent her time tending chickens, swattin' younguns, making biscuits and chicken dumplings... I would actually love to use her name when I have kids, probably use Anne as a middle name I guess. It doesn't have the same spirit as Annie Mae but I think the last thing she'd want me to do is embarrass a kid with her name!