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To: Onelifetogive
I worked for the Vital Records Section of a state government that I won't name. I am retired now. Some of the names you would not believe were used on birth certificates.

Some yokes gave their twins these names: Spoonbread and Cornbread. I kid you not. The parents lived in the most liberal county of the state and were well educated!

Then there was name, “Heaven Lee Scent” given to a kid. Again, I kid you not.

It was fun to collect the odd names that parents had given to their kids. But oh the horrors of being stuck with them!

59 posted on 07/27/2008 7:21:12 PM PDT by Buddygirl (Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father except through Me.)
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To: Buddygirl

My wife worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the Adolescent Medicine Department in inner city Baltimore for many years.

One of the biggest issues they had was pronouncing names. Often, due to lack of even the most basic English skills, the mothers would misspell, mispronounce or forget the made-up names they had given their offspring. Once, security had to be called because a grandmother (age 35) started yelling at and hitting her daughter (age 21) about forgetting the spelling of the name of the granddaughter (age 8) who was being treated for early puberty (!).

Also, my wife was told by a black nurse that these names were meant to be “not white-sounding” so the Affirmative Action folks could pick them out without asking for “race” in an application or other form.

FWIW


62 posted on 07/27/2008 7:36:08 PM PDT by Andy from Chapel Hill
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