§ 85 Proving There’s Something in a Name
I once knew a colored child called “Exey” for short, whose real name was Eczema. The mother of the pickaninny had found the word in a patent medicine almanac and had fallen in love with its poetic sound. I also included in my acquaintance at one time a negro youth who answered to the title of Hallowed Harris.
“Yas, suh,” stated his father on being pressed for his reason for choosing so unusual a baptismal prefix for his offspring, “I got dat name outen de Holy Bible. Don’t you ’member, boss, whar it say in de Lawd’s Prayer, ‘Hallowed be Thy name’?”
But the Testamental name which struck me as being most interesting of all was worn by a dog—a mangy appearing, breedless, nondescript rabbit dog which trailed an old darky on a road in the piny woods of South Georgia. The dog ranged off into the thickets and his owner ordered him back.
“Did I hear you calling that dog ‘Rover,’ Uncle?” asked a white man.
“Naw, suh, I called him ‘Over,’ w’ich is short for ‘Mo’over,’ w’ich it is de dawg’s right name.”
“Where did you get that name and why?”
“Fur good reasons, boss,” said the old man, with a chuckle. “W’en I gits dat dawg he’s jest little scabby pup an’ alluz ’nointin’ of hisse’f wid his tongue. So I ’members whar de Good Book say, ‘An’ de dawg, Mo’over, licked his sores.’ So I knowed den I had done hit on de right name fur dat pup of mine.”