Wednesday, August 12, 2009

A girl named Urine

North Carolina is noted for unusual names, especially among the illiterate folks. The illiteracy rate here in rural NC is amazing, and this inability to read contributes to the funny name phenomenon.

In the 19th century country folks chose obscure Roman of Biblical names (my Grandparents were named Vespasian and Corinna), but today they make-up names and anything goes . . .

We know a waitress named Jerkala, and a nice lady named Shetaqua, (whose name is pronounced shit-ta-qua, I kid you not).

Oh, did I mention the young lady named Lattrine?

Now I ask you, who chooses a child name with sounds like sh*t and jerk in them?

North Carolina country folk do . . .

Illiterate names

We all know about the stupid country song “a boy named Sue”, but how many people know the story of the girl named “Urine”? By the way, the name Urine (or Urene), is not pronounced like pee (“Your in”), but instead, it’s pronounced with a hard U, and sounds like “You-Reene”.

Urine explained that she asked her Mommy how she got such an unusual name, and her Momma explained that she was born a preemie and spent two weeks in the intensive care unit.

On the ICU crib, a large sign was posted that read:

“Please save Urine”. . . .

Only semi-literate, her Mom assumed that was her name on the sign:

“That’s when I knew that the folks in the ICU had done named you already”. . .