Okay, I normally don’t do the “I thought that said…” posts, but this one I have to share. I first read the bolded word as “squares.” Which led to the image of one of the gentry ordering a beatnik/hippie-looking peasant off his land, who says, “Hey, you can’t, like, own property, man!”
I remember reading somewhere that in the late 1940’s-early1960’s, African-Americans were always called by their first name, never using the honorific…a “white” Sam Jones was “Mr Jones”, while an African-Am was always called “Sam”. In response, there were many African-Am moms who named their sons “Mister”.
How sad.
Actually Conrad Hilton founded the chain. Baron was his son.
Wow, how I could I have forgotten a fellow from my highschool…
Von Cletus Moore. Von Cletus.
Wouldn’t that just be an alternative spelling for “Vaughan”?
Oh my. I forgot to mention that I’ve always loved the uniqueness of the name Von Gretchen Shepard (so much that it came instantly to mind). Von Cletus, not so much.
A little (no, a lot) off track is another unique name that I love for some reason; my female cousin’s name – Johnny Elaine.
A friend of my wife has the name Mi’Lady, which prompted me to ask whether her husbands name might be ‘Mi’Lord’ ??
Turns out she’s from someplace in South America and it’s not spelled that way - more similar to ‘Melody’ in the American pronunciation.
Also, my 2 sisters go by fairly unusual names - George & Jo.
-Georgina & Josephine.
I used to date a Serafin who went by Serf—better than Sara, I guess…
They could have called her Godfreya. God for short.
Which is also a pretty good reason to never refer to a black male as “boy.” I grok the idea behind people naming their children in response to such things. Incidentally, it, for some reason, is a pretty common southern tradition to call black women (or any elder lady, really) Miss Whatever-her-first-name-is.
Heck, even not so elderly ladies. I’m “Miss TroubleAgain” to a whole lot of kids and a few adults. Usually the adults do it out of affection, though, rather than a serious form of address.
Damn. I just spoke to the Baron in our office who inspired this thread, and … he has no idea why he was called that. His parents won’t tell him.
There was an actor who did a lot of TV work in the 70s named Squire Fridell. He was in a show with Tony Roberts called “Rosetti and Ryan” which I think lasted less than a season, but I really liked it. I am remembering that his full name is Squire Franklin Fridell III but I can’t find confirmation of that anywhere, but I can’t imagine I made it up.