# Okay, So What Was the 'Big Bopper's' FULL Name? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 27, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926 "2010-05-27T06:46:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/1 "2010-05-27T06:46:01Z")
Concerning [this](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/292/what-was-the-big-boppers-real-name) Cecil Column, I quote: > [@](#): > > Dear Cecil: > > Cecil, what was the Big Bopper’s real name? > > — S.H., Baltimore Cecil replies: > [@](#): > > The Big Bopper, who made a hit of “Chantilly Lace” and died in a plane crash along with Richie Valens and Buddy Holly, was in real life a disc jockey and program director at KTRM in Beaumont, Texas. His real name was J.P. Richardson. Forgive me for nitpicking, but so what does the **J.P.** stand for? ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/2 "2010-05-27T07:26:57Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Concerning [this](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/292/what-was-the-big-boppers-real-name) Cecil Column, I quote: > > Cecil replies: > > Forgive me for nitpicking, but so what does the **J.P.** stand for? Jiles Perry Richardson. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/3 "2010-05-27T13:01:07Z")
> [@TWDuke](#): > > Jiles Perry Richardson. Correct: [J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson (1930-1959) - Find a Grave Memorial](http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1705) You’d have thought that the full name would’ve been included by Cecil in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/4 "2010-05-27T13:44:07Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Correct: [J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson (1930-1959) - Find a Grave Memorial](http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1705) > > You’d have thought that the full name would’ve been included by Cecil in the first place. To be fair, the songwriting credits on the various tunes the Bopper composed (e.g., “White Lightning,” “Running Bear”) always read J. P. Richardson. This was the name he was known by, and there are surely other public figures whose full names are rarely given. Some you see only in their obituaries (“So-and-so was born XXX XXX XXXXXXX…”). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/5 "2010-05-27T13:53:24Z")
Still, if someone asks for the actual name of a famous nicknamed person, the better practice IMHO is to provide the full name, perhaps in this case worded “Jiles Perry ‘J.P.’ Richardson.” ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/6 "2010-05-27T14:03:17Z")
When a person is commonly known by, or only used, their initials I’ve seen their “full” name written as J(iles) P(erry) Richardson. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/7 "2010-05-27T15:27:41Z")
What’s the story with J. Robert Oppenheimer? I’ve heard that he was named after his father, Julius. But I’ve also heard that Oppenheimer denied this (and family members back him up) and said the J was just a letter and didn’t stand for anything. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/8 "2010-05-27T16:25:55Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What’s the story with J. Robert Oppenheimer? I’ve heard that he was named after his father, Julius. But I’ve also heard that Oppenheimer denied this (and family members back him up) and said the J was just a letter and didn’t stand for anything. Why don’t we check his Hawaiian birth cirtificate? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/9 "2010-05-27T17:48:49Z")
Looks like it was J. for Julius: [http://www.atomicarchive.com/Bios/Oppenheimer.shtml](http://www.atomicarchive.com/Bios/Oppenheimer.shtml) [J. Robert Oppenheimer - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer) (see footnote 1) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2010, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/10 "2010-05-27T21:18:41Z")
Wikipedia doesn’t really seem definitive on the subject: > [@](#): > > The meaning of the ‘J’ in J. Robert Oppenheimer has been a source of confusion. Historians Alice Kimball Smith and Charles Weiner sum up the general historical opinion in their volume Robert Oppenheimer: Letters and recollections, on page 1: “Whether the ‘J’ in Robert’s name stood for Julius or, as Robert himself once said, ‘for nothing’ may never be fully resolved. His brother Frank surmises that the ‘J’ was symbolic, a gesture in the direction of naming the eldest son after the father but at the same time a signal that his parents did not want Robert to be a ‘junior.’” In Peter Goodchild’s J. Robert Oppenheimer: Shatterer of Worlds, it is said that Robert’s father, Julius, added the empty initial to give Robert’s name additional distinction, but Goodchild’s book has no footnotes so the source of this assertion is unclear. Robert’s claim that the ‘J’ stood “for nothing” is taken from an autobiographical interview conducted by Thomas S. Kuhn on November 18, 1963, which currently resides in the Archive for the History of Quantum Physics. When investigating Oppenheimer in the 1930s and 1940s, the FBI itself was befuddled by the ‘J’, deciding that it probably stood for Julius or Jerome. On the other hand, Oppenheimer’s birth certificate reads “Julius Robert Oppenheimer”, according to a number of recent biographies. The birth certificate would be definitive but it seems uncited here in comparison to the other sources. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/11 "2010-05-28T12:08:04Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What’s the story with J. Robert Oppenheimer? I’ve heard that he was named after his father, Julius. But I’ve also heard that Oppenheimer denied this (and family members back him up) and said the J was just a letter and didn’t stand for anything. That was true in the case of Harry S Truman. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2010, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/12 "2010-05-28T12:16:55Z")
{quote=Little Nemo]What’s the story with J. Robert Oppenheimer? I’ve heard that he was named after his father, Julius. But I’ve also heard that Oppenheimer denied this (and family members back him up) and said the J was just a letter and didn’t stand for anything. > [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > That was true in the case of Harry S Truman. The “J” in “Harry S Truman” didn’t stand for anything? … Actually, Harry Truman stood for a lot. ---
**Author:** ![rplongbeach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/848f3c/32.png) [@rplongbeach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rplongbeach)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-so-what-was-the-big-boppers-full-name/540926/13 "2010-06-03T16:01:55Z")
His name was Jiles Perry Richardson.