OK – time for me to air my family laundry.
My grandmother’s name was Johnnie Gay. (She married a Walker, which of course made her Johnnie Walker – and to further the irony, she was a teetotaler!) She had six siblings – one was Olive Maxine (bad enough – we called her Aunt Dean), one was Billie Daphine, and another girl was named Edna Earl (which actually sounds good together, but oh, the poor child!). Mercifully the only boy was named Robert Henley. The rest had fairly normal names. Aunt Dean, Aunt Edna (I called her Auntie), Granma, and Aunt Billie (who was a RIP and could keep you in stitches and knew more dirty jokes than a sailor) were all born in that order. Someone wanted boys….
Robert Henley - my beloved Uncle Bobby - was born after Aunt Billie, and the girls after him (two did not make it) had normal names. Guess the boy worries were then safely out of the way. (The oldest was a girl and was named Millicent Caroline, which suited her. Everyone called her Sister, of course - so we called her Aunt Sister.)
My grandfather (who was born in 1907) had an aunt named Willard. She had a half sister named Jane who named two of her sons Adolf and Berlin.
No idea why; they were born in the late twenties. Can’t imagine what their lives were like by 1939….
My father’s sister is named – are you ready for this? – Elmina Yergey.
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