Dave Land wrote:
On Dec 18, 2005, at 9:53 AM, Julia Thompson wrote:
She's not going to name him "Hoss" or "Skeeter", but he might have
his daddy's name, or he might have the name of one or more of his
first cousins, and nicknames like "Hoss" or "Skeeter" will identify
him more precisely than "Sterling" if there are already 5 Sterlings
out of 50 male relatives in the county.
You really think that there are a lot of Sterlings "up holler"? I know
you're way behind on your email, but "Sterling"? That's a name to get
your ass a good whoopin' in some parts.
More like in the piedmont than in the mountains proper.
And I'm related to a Sterling, that's why I engaged in that particular
piece of proctonomenclature. (Is that the right word?)
One tradition in the old south was to give the first son the mother's
maiden name as a first name. So if the mother's maiden name was, in
fact, Sterling, and she had a lot of sisters, you could have a real
passel of Sterlings running around.
Julia
whose families avoided that one, and just used the middle name to pass
along all the family names
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