Odd Names In History

Real names assigned at birth, antique and modern; not trying to make fun of anybody or their culture, just an onomastic fanblog

[tribble-ations]

Citing an article on the evolution of horses and the first author's name is McHorse

[vriska-serketboard]

@horsefigureoftheday

[horsefigureoftheday]

Nominative determinism strikes again

[kittysneezes]

I like this article because it’s not what you think it is.

[aprilwitching-deactivated201808]

the world is a strange and wonderous place

[oddnamesinhistory]

Cleon Throckmorton

1897-1965, American set designer for jazz age drama

[flashdyke]

Murdered by le evil baron

[oddnamesinhistory]

Ervil LeBaron - Wikipedia

Ervil LeBaron - Wikipedia

Ervil LeBaron (1925-1981), American cult leader convicted of ordering the deaths of followers that attempted to found schisms from his own teachings after he was excommunicated from the Mormon church

[oddnamesinhistory]

Dr. Legrand Capers

1834-1877, American doctor famous for reporting a case in which during the Civil War a musket-ball went through a soldier's testicle and into a woman's abdomen and resulted in pregnancy; he had intended it to be an obvious joke, not expecting people to believe it. (The phrase "son of a gun" is at least 150 years older than the story so it's not the origin of it.)

[metmuseum]

Floy Crowell, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 1) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes. ca. 1888. Credit line: The Jefferson R. Burdick Collection, Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/414935

[oddnamesinhistory]

Can’t find much about Floy Crowell besides a bunch of different cigarette cards and her touring acting company having included Ogarita Booth Henderson, another small-time stage actor from the 1880s famous for claiming (probably incorrectly) to be the illegitimate daughter of John Wilkes Booth

[oddnamesinhistory]

Presidential Middle Initial Facts

* Warren Gamaliel Harding

* Rutherford Birchard Hayes

* James Knox Polk

* Chester Alan Arthur

* James Abram Garfield

* Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. It was changed when his congressman nominated him for West Point and got his name wrong. As a result, the S never really stood for anything, although after classmates saw his stuff with the name “U. S. Grant” a number of them started calling him Uncle Sam.

* Harry S. Truman’s middle initial was chosen because his parents couldn’t decide whether it should be “Shipp” or “Solomon” after each of his grandfathers; even so, it is written with a period. Either his middle name was “S.” including the period, or his name was a quantum superposition of both Shipp and Solomon simultaneously.

[oddnamesinhistory]

The USA has had two different presidents whose middle name was just the letter S

[italo-disco-calvino]

Bing's parents intended to name him after his father, which would have made him Rupert Henry Bing Jr., but his mother felt this was "too British for Texas" and compromised by abbreviating it to R. H. Consequently, R. H. does not stand for any first or middle name. When Bing applied for a visa, he was told that initials would not be accepted. He explained that his name was "R-only H-only Bing", and received a visa made out to "Ronly Honly Bing".[4] A similar incident occurred when Bing became a professor at Wisconsin; asked what name to put on his nameplate, he answered "R only H only Bing" and later found his door read "Ronly Honly Bing".

[oddnamesinhistory]

Variations on this story appear in a lot of urban legends but apparently it really did happen!

[depsidase]

[oddnamesinhistory]

Nope, it’s real

Iwona B. Horyn is DHS acting chief security officer's real name

Horyn was named to the role following her predecessor's retirement, according to LinkedIn.

[oddnamesinhistory]

Estus W. Pirkle

1930-2005, American televangelist who would I'm sure be pretty upset that his biggest legacy seems to be when one of his sermons was sampled by Negativland to create the song "Christianity Is Stupid"

[cryptotheism]

The Romans were for real naming their kids shit like Boy #2

[oddnamesinhistory]

For unrecorded reasons a Major Stickney in Ohio named his sons One and Two; One lived a mundane life while Two Stickney was the only casualty in a border dispute between Ohio and Michigan in the 1830s

[depsidase]

[oddnamesinhistory]

Assheton Biddulph

Master of the King's County Hounds, 1910

[portalibis]

Miscellaneous moods in verse : one hundred and one poems with illustrations by Elihu Vedder (1836-1923) XXVI. PORTALS OF THOUGHT Behold the Center Void and Bare Holds Nothing be it Foul or Fair But what the Seeker carries there; Or better — Full it seems to be Of what the Seeker Wills to See; There he may see the Bat, the Owl, The Snake, the Toad and Things most foul, Or see in it naught but a Sod — Or see in it a Living God. — J.F.

P.I. Telegram / P.I. Facebook

[oddnamesinhistory]

Elihu Vedder

1836-1923, American illustrator

[thereadersdesire]

[oddnamesinhistory]

Assuming I’m looking at the same Valance Patriarche—the middle initial doesn’t match but how many Valance Patriarches can there be—1877-1970, Canadian author, journalist, and the first woman to serve on Manitoba’s official film censorship board, 1916-1936

[onion-souls]

[oddnamesinhistory]

Mayfred “Mayf” Nutter

1941- , American musician and actor