One of my family surnames was changed upon entry into the U.S.: The English Leacock. Apparently it was too embarrassing.
So, it was changed to… Leacox. :rolleyes:
I have always interpreted this joke as racial, meant to poke fun at African Americans for daring to name their kids outside of mainstream white culture.
My favoritest real name ever is CHIEW SUM CHOW.
I suspect that the “-j/gello” twins had ancestors (see bolded text, below).
Hudson, then a folklorist at the University of North Carolina, remarked in a footnote on p. 183 that "[t]he only two printed sources of information are an article by Gertrude S. Carraway, in the Greensboro (N.C.) Daily News, January 9, 1938, from which I got about fifty names, and a brief Associated Press dispatch in the Birmingham [Alabama] Age-Herald, October 14, 1938, dated New Orleans, La. My other (personal) sources of information are, as well as I can account for them, the following: [and he goes on to name about fifty (presumably) white people from all over the South, but principally from Chapel Hill, NC].
Just as a footnote … not long ago I discovered that the tale of how “Nosmo King” got his name is much older than I had thought: in American newspapers, it dates back at least to 1891.
– Tammi Terrell
I’m with the OP on this. Orangello, Lemongello, Asshole (Ashley), and Shithead just scream “bullshit.”
However, I teach in a low-SES school in Phoenix, and have met two Champagnes and two Velvets. All four lived with grandparents when I dealt with them. All four are also African American. I have noticed a trend toward more “classic” names with AA males, though: I have a Shawn, a Carlton, and two Kenneth’s at school now. I know, it’s only four people, so not much of a trend, but our school is 80% Hispanic and 66% female, so having four AA males at once is a bit of a rarity to begin with!
Sorry slight hijack… back in University I worked as a bartender in the campus pub. One night some international students came in and this extremely attractive asian girl came up to the bar smiling at me and being really friendly. I asked what I could do for her and she replied “I would like to have your large cock, can you please give it to me?” I was blown away, thinking “Man, those asian girls don’t beat around the bush!” (I know, bad pun) Then I realized she was pointing at the big COKE sign behind me!
Although “given in good faith as authentic” is not the same thing as “authentic”, I don’t have trouble believing that there might once have been twins named Orange and Lemon. It’s not unheard of to name children after types of fruit (I’ve got a cousin named Cherry), and I get 880 hits in the Social Security Death Index for people with the first name “Orange” and 1000 for “Lemon”.
There’s a reason why there’s no urban legend about kids named “Orange” and “Lemon”, though. Those names are unusual, but “Hey, there were once these kids named after fruit” isn’t much of a story. What humor there is in the legend of Oranjello and Lemonjello comes from the idea that the mother was stupid and pretentious. Either she was barely literate and picked the names off a package or hospital menu without knowing what they meant or how they were pronounced, or she just named her children after the first thing she saw after giving birth and tried to make the names sound fancier later by changing the pronunciation.
Just to make this clear: so Shi-thayd is not a common Indian name that is sometimes spelled “Shithead”?
Male/Female are traditionally used as the first names on newborns when they are first admitted right after being born (as in Smith, Female). Most hospitals will keep them with that name until discharge, even after their parents have filled out the birth certificate.
Assuming you’re serious, it’s Italian and means “Blessed Angel.”
That one is a female form of Marciano, which in turn is a form of Marcial; so, it means martian but in the sense of “protected by the god of war,” not in the sense of coming from the planet.
Dionicio, which QtM mentioned, is a typo on Dionisio (Dyonisius) caused by overcompensation. Sometimes people whose variant of Spanish uses seseo (and who therefore would pronounce za, ce, ci, zo, zu as sa, se, si, so, su) smack a z/c where the spelling really does call for an s. I worked with an Hortencia along the same lines (the usual spelling is Hortensia).
Russell Peters has a skit on the names:
Sukhdeep (which Americans often pronounce as Suckdeep)
Hardik (Harddick)
Ramandeep (Ram 'em deep)
None of them are pronounced like that in our culture, but unfortunately we don’t always plan ahead!
I’ve always been grateful my name is just difficult and doesn’t sound like anything weird in English.
I knew a lovely biracial girl several years ago whose name was Golden Brown.
Had she had been ugly it would have been quite sad, but as it turned out it fit her quite well.
Originally posted by Strassia:
Yep. I’m totally prepared to accept that as a conclusion. It would be sort of uncomfortably unintentionally funny if that name came from stupidity on the parent’s part, but I don’t know which other explanation is sadder: a. Her parents did it to be mean in some way, or b. At least one person at school hated her so much that they’d saddle her with that name in a pretty enduring way.
The point of my post, which I obviously didn’t make clear, is that it’s possible that urban legends involving children named Orangello and Lemongello and how they acquired their names may have been inspired by older, white perceptions of “bizarre Negro names” (whether or not those names were or are authentic). At least in the '30s (and I’m sure earlier) there were published commentaries along the lines of “what will those black folks think of next for naming their children!” As I pointed out, one such article appeared in a prominent journal devoted to Southern folklore; parts of its text reflect quite racist attitudes, not necessarily of the author, but of anecdotes involving how such names came to be. A good part of that text is devoted to “funny name” urban legends of the day, some of which survive today.
In the end, I’ve not found anything to suggest that tales involving Orangello and Lemongello existed in the '30s, but I think it’s at least possible that the more modern (black) Orangello/Lemongello legends may have grown out of (white) anecdotes involving various (black) Oranges and Lemons of the past.
Does this help?
– Tammi Terrell
It seems unlikely to me that a story about boys named Orange and Lemon would have been passed around much because, as I said before, it isn’t especially funny or memorable. A story about a kid named “Latrine” (true or not) is worth repeating, but “Orange” and “Lemon”? There’s probably no way to know for sure, but it doesn’t strike me as an anecdote that would have been told often enough to evolve into anything else. It seems just as likely to me that the story of “Oranjello” and “Lemonjello” was invented as a companion to the many other stories about ignorant black women naming their kids after things they saw or read in the hospital. It may have helped that “Lemongello” is a real last name.
I have a business card from a Dick Pinkstaff. No joke.
My dad worked with a guy named Oliver Dickey,not sure of the spelling of the surname. One of my first roommates was J.R. Ewing, he also had a brother Bobby and a sister Pam, No shit!
Around here we have an unusual amount of women named Mary Christmas.
I knew a fellow named Duk Wing and a girl named Anita Hicky.
I used to work with a couple of guys named FK Yu and, no joke, Dick Orifice.
So, Duncan Donuts is not likely to be a “real” name then?
…and, I really wasn’t going to mention this, for fear of losing credibility, but Anita’s middle name is, Vagina…no, really, it is.