Posted on 08/31/2012 8:14:53 PM PDT by Morgana
G.G. Jackson was one of many women employed by agencies of the federal government. She had been born in Chicago's South Side in 1963. Her mother, Shavonna Jackson, had been fifteen at the time. Like many 15-year-old single mothers, Shavonna Jackson had not thought much about the realities of motherhood, including the immediate problem of what to name her offspring.
Concurrently, overworked interns on rotation in ghetto hospitals did what they could to entertain themselves amid 20-hour days in depressing surroundings. In 1963, as in all other years, one of the standard gambits among interns assigned to inner-city delivery rooms was to see who could cause the most outrageous name to be printed on the birth certificate of children born to ghetto teenagers.
The second week of February, 1963 saw some serious competition among interns in south Chicago. In a five-day period, there were Chicago-area births registered for Madison Avenue Washington, Epluribus Wilson, Nosmo King (inspired by a waiting room sign), Simian Cook, and Anus Brown. The award that week, however, went to a young doctor from Grosse Pointe, Michigan, who hated working in the Chicago facility. He had suggested to Miss Jackson that she give her infant daughter a distinctive, happy-sounding name, and offered one he thought appropriate. He pronounced the first name with the accent on the second syllable, and Shavonna thought it sounded nice. Like 'Gloria', only fancier. People who read the name would pronounce it differently, but Shavonna could not read, so the impact of the intern's joke was not felt for some time.
[G.G. Jackson's name is not revealed until hundreds of pages later...]
I'm talking about names like Diewell Sykes, IfChristhadnotdiedfortheethouhadstbeendamned Barebones, Weakly Elkins, Nomerit Vynall, Humiliation Hinde, Buried Muschamp, Flydebate Smart.
“IfChristhadnotdiedfortheethouhadstbeendamned”
Oh my goodness!
I suppose this person was best known as “Iffy”.
That does make the two gal’s names seem quite tame in comparison.
IfChristhadnotdiedfortheethouhadstbeendamned was actually his middle name. First name was Nicholas, which he tended to use more, for some reason. His father was named Praise-God, and was the guy Barebones Parliament was named after.
Nick was an interesting guy, one of the first to promote the idea of the free market, and so kind of a predecessor to Adam Smith.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Barbon
I believe Nicholas was the son with the middle name and PraiseGod was the nickname of Nicholas’ father, who actually had this as his own first name.
“Do you really think Intravenia or (any letters here...isha) or Moon Unit are much better ?”
Don’t know who Intravenia is but as for Moon Unit I know what was wrong with Frank Zappa. Eric Cartman and I feel the same way about hippies.
I thought you said this was preschool she was dropped off at...clearly this was not.
How interesting. So did I. In Los Angeles, circa 1980s.
If you are really a lawyer, you need to work on your grammar; it is not “a unemployed lawyer” it is “an unemployed lawyer”.
We have a friend in common.
Big guy? Sandy hair? Glasses?
That's the Loyal Walker I knew. Nice guy, too.
That’s my memory of him as well.
No loving parent sends their 4-year-old off on a school bus alone. The parent and child should expect crap to happen.
(Yeah, I’m kind of trolling. I’m feeling especially arrogant about being a homeschooling dad tonight. Oh, and we’re a 1-income family.)
Well I'll be darned. Small world, ain't it?
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