[Magdalen] Mardi Gras.

[Sibyl Smirl]

On 2/28/17 10:27 PM, Lynn Ronkainen wrote:
> Interesting Sibyl. My dad's name was Eugene and he was 1/2 Norwegian from MN. I'm wondering if that was a popular Scandinavian name? When he left home he was called by his last name by friends for the rest of his life - Tully.
> Lynn

Uncle Gene was an exception.  He had a lot of names, and didn't really 
belong in my example.  His birth name was Harry Eugene Anderson.  He was 
native-born American, and his parents came from Sweden already married. 
  For some reason, we had quite a few Swedish immigrants here in this 
little rural area who arrived in the early 20th century, many of them 
already related (came here specifically probably because they had a 
brother or a cousin here before them, and knew that this was a good 
place for farmers).  The mother of one of my friends didn't speak any 
English when she entered the First Grade of one of the rural schools 
(those schools didn't have Kindergarten, nor did mine. That was for town 
kids).  She managed just fine, and grew up to be a teacher herself.  My 
Uncle Gene had an Uncle whom I knew here, who had a thick accent, called 
"Tory" (that was how I heard it, and assumed that it was similar to the 
Tories from the American Revolution and the British and Canadian 
political parties.)  I had read a lot of Norse mythology, and was amazed 
when I saw the proper spelling on his tombstone when I was an adult: it 
was spelled "Thor"!  I had never connected the American farmer I knew 
with The Thunderer!
    Anyway, back to Uncle Gene, one of the Greatest Generation, fought 
in Europe in WWII, and totally American as far as anybody could notice, 
except for the nickname "Swede".  Besides the ones I mentioned, the 
people who worked at the fertilizer plant with him all called him 
"Andy", for Anderson, his surname.  If somebody they ran into in town 
when he was with my aunt, his wife, called him "Andy", she knew where he 
worked.
   He was the finest of men, almost as perfect as my dad.  I miss him.


>
> On Feb 28, 2017, at 9:55 PM, Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3 at ckt.net> wrote:
>
>> On 2/28/17 9:24 PM, ME Michaud wrote:
>> This makes no sense to me but, of course, it's cultural.
>>
>> I cannot imagine calling someone by a name that's not theirs.
>> His first name is Youssef, not Tony.
>
> Ever hear of nicknames?  He bought the nickname with the business, in this case, but I knew a lot of men when I was younger whose real first names I didn't know at all until I was adult and looking at the Farmer's Union accounts, and then never used them to call name.  We didn't use the title-firstname (or nickname) convention in my area, though. "Frenchy" Lawson even used his nickname on his election posters, and if I ever knew his real first name, I've forgotten it.  Then there was my uncle, who went by "Swede" among men, but his wasn't so firmly attached: I called him "Uncle Harry" or "Uncle Gene", and some called him "Harry Gene", real first and middle names (Eugene, actually, but for some reason he hated EUgene, and everybody respected that).  Then I knew several "Shorty"s, a couple of "Bud"s, and one "Red".
>
>


-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net