Unusual Names of North Carolina Babies, Dec. 5, 1921

Freak Names Found in Board of Health Statistics at Raleigh. . . Real Carolina Babies Carrying Queer Titles

By Brock Barkley

Raleigh, Dec. 4—If anybody things that freak names are confined to story books and that their passengers are only the subjects of jokes, he has another thought coming, as Dr. F.M. Register, head of the bureau of vital statistics of the state board of health is ready to certify.

In looking over the list of children born the first half of the year, Dr. Register today ran across such names as these: “Methodist Conference,” “John the Baptist,” Nathan the Prophet,” “Coca-Cola,” “Chero-Cola.” These are not fictional characters. They are real, live, crying babies and their names are officially listed in the archives of the state board of health, and Dr. Register stands ready to verify them.

But there were some more, just as real. Everybody has heard of the twins--”Peter and Repeter,” “Kate and “Duplicate.” These, too, have been incarnated in the persons of four North Carolina youngsters, two pairs of twins.

Perhaps the oddest name of all was “Second Samuel, Second Chapter, Seventh Verse.”

Other out of the ordinary names found in the card index were “Cape Hatteras,” “America, England, France and Belgium,” “Ugley Peacock,” “Brown Pigg,” “Tumer Trouble.”

Another name which is an abbreviation is “Fionaw.” This is a colored child, found in the woods in an eastern county. Its name spelled out would be “Find the Owner.”

Statistic so far for the year show that there were, in round numbers, 43,000 children born in North Carolina during the first six months of the year. This is 2,000 in excess of the corresponding period in 1920.

Figures for 1920, now complete, show that the birthrate in North Carolina was 31.8, as compared with 23.7 for the entire United States. As a matter of fact, North Carolina has the highest birthrate in the union and one of the lowest death rates. The death rate for the United States in 1920 was 13.1, while the rate in North Carolina was only 12.6.

There has been a noticeable decline in the state’s death rate since the year of the big flu epidemic. That year it ran up to about 17. The theory for the decrease is that the flu killed a lot of people who were constitutionally weak and that those who escaped the epidemic were strong and have withstood other diseases.

From the editorial page of the Wilmington Morning Star, Monday, December 5, 1921. Imagine these names on driver's licenses or passports or on the voter's rolls. Or imagine a child going through life with a name that means "Find the Owner" because he was abandoned at birth.