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Any true southerner has problems understanding why Yankees get a hoot out of Southern naming patterns. People not in the know suppose that double or even triple names are joined for no other reason than good meter. It might be unreasonable of me, but the thought of a person making jokes about a practice they don't have a clue about just makes me angry. Southerners choose their babies' names for good reasons. Never mind that the names that they adore are probably different than the ones on the articles of the most popular baby names for any given time frame. Southern mothers don't just flip through the latest books and land on names because they are cute or cool. These women take more pains in finding the perfect name for their babies than they did in giving birth to them. That declaration may be a little excessive, but folks in the southern part of the country really agonize over what to call their baby. This is because selecting southern baby names takes much more than tossing around the different names typed in some monthly baby magazine that lists the copycat meanings of various baby names. Word meanings are ok; they have been successful for the people who sell Webster's Dictionaries for decades! But when you start discussing naming southern boys and girls you're looking at the history of names within a family, not what they might mean to a person who wants a name that means something to somebody who speaks a foreign language! As far as meter goes, I don't care how easily a special name trips off the tongue, diligence and consideration has to be used in the what these babies will be named.Care must be taken so as not to risk naming a child after one of the kin somewhere in the lineage that committed some type of crime in the past. The unfortunate ancestor's unfortunate misdeed might have been anything from having befriended one of the enemies to having done a little time in Atlanta for not having been shut mouthed about the whereabouts of the community still. The error would be in having been found out, as there is certainly no dishonor in producing your own refreshments even in the modern South. Don't be confused to dream that only the names of a southern child's ancestors are treasured or even that their grandparents are the only ones passed forward. There may have been a valiant great great uncle who battled bravely in the war and deemed worthy of honor. In this instance there may be a contest every generation or so among children to have the first boy child. The reward for winning this rather unusual race will be that the first son can have first dibs for the famous ancestor's name. Talk about confusion at family picnics! How would you ever be able to differentiate between all those kids named the same thing? How does a body manage to call one of them without dragging in the whole bunch? That's where middle names come in handy and that brings me to a reason behind the southern tradition of double naming patterns! As we all know southerners are famous for double names. Some are forced to resort to triple names so that their little Johnny and Sally stands apart from the rest. Why this is a tradition attributed to the south I'm not really certain. I would like to think it's that southerners have so many beloved kin that they want to claim. This fact makes it necessary to give each child several names so that everyillustrious departed family member is sufficiently memorialized. I can't count the many theories where credit can be given for the reasoning of traditional southern baby naming patterns and the traditions behind them. There seems to be no definite answer as to why family names and history appear to be more important to moms and dads in the south than in other regions of the nation. There is however, no disagreement that the results are some of the most stately and unique names you will find stamped on a birth certificate anywhere. The next time you feel tempted to chuckle at a child named old timey consider that the first person that bore the identical name may not have perished defending a southern lady's reputation but that he may have died defending our liberty and our country.
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Jan Bay is a Freelance Author of Nursery Decorating Articles Baby Gear Reviews and Webmaster for www.unique-baby-gear-ideas.com Use of this article requires an active link to Popular Baby Names
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