Bruce, I was watching a special on modern China the other day and a China specialist was pontificating on several points. His name was Bill Moomaw.

Now, you're the first person I ever ran across with that last name, so I figure it can't be all *that* common. Is this fellow some relation of yours?

-the other Doug

Not that I know of, but we're scattered around. It took us until 1983 to answer a question as elementary as what the ethnic origin of that weird name is.

It turns out that the Moomaws were originally Huguenot French who, being Protestant, decided to leave after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and similar displays of rudeness from their Catholic neighbors and head on up to the Netherlands, which was famous as a refuge for Protestants. I presume it's there that the name picked up its current spelling, which does look Dutch -- I suspect before then it was "Mumma" (there are a few of those around too, including the first researcher to find methane in Mars' atmosphere). Anyway, a lot of them arrived in the eastern US and spread out like a plague from there. The most famous of our clan is probably the Rev. Don Moomaw, a former football player who used to be Ronald Reagan's "spiritual advisor" before he discovered, like so many holy men before him, the delights of hookers. If I had a nickel for every time I've been asked whether I know that guy...

My, those Huguenots got around, didn't they? My grandmother (on my father's side) was a La Trobe, and they had the same history. One in particular, Jean La Trobe, joined up with William of Orange and ended up in Ireland. After spawning such luminaries as Benjamin LaTrobe, architect of the US Capitol, and James LaTrobe, first Governor of the State of Victoria in Oz, the family's fortunes diminished, resulting in me.

Phil

They are alike as to you as a bad man? Nope. I hope it would be written as spread out as a mushrooms of families...

Rodolfo

Actually, I did misspeak. It's just the NAME that's a plague...

Yup. Small world, the Canvins were Huguenots too. We headed of to England when things got ugly, but are now scattered all over the globe as well.

Canvin is thought to derive from the french "champs de vin" = "fields of wine", which I think explains a lot!

James

I just have to jump in here to say that this is one of the funnier topic titles I've seen.

--Emily

I'm afraid moomaw doesn't make any sense in Dutch either
It's actually harder to pronounce in Dutch than it is in English

>I'm afraid moomaw doesn't make any sense in Dutch either...

Sheesh, talk about double-meanings.

I thought I was bad being Harris on the paternal side and Podobnikar on the maternal side...

What about Emily's name?

---Bill

It's Indian (my husband's a Parsi). "walla" is a term for a seller of something, so you see all kinds of -wallas among his community; Motiwalla, Daruwalla, even, and I am completely serious about this, Sodawaterwalla. Stupid British; the Parsis didn't have surnames until the British came in and said "What! What! Of course you must have surnames." The Parsis made up surnames either from their cities of origin or their occupations (There are also lots of "Contractors" and "Engineers" among the Parsis). "Lakdawalla" is timber-merchant; the Parsis were majorly into shipbuilding. I have heard what may be urban legends about the surnames "Waysidepetrolstationwalla" and even "Sodawaterbottleopenerwalla". I can't vouch for the veracity of those but I have actually met a Sodawaterwalla.

--Emily

Wow -- I sure can't top that in terms of origins of names, Emily! However, in my own small way...

My last name (the patronymic) is Van Dorn. My mother's maiden name was Vangundy. Two more Dutch names you couldn't find... and yet, I'm only a quarter dutch. My mother is half-English (mother's maiden name was Liming) and half Dutch. My father is one-quarter Dutch and three-quarters German -- his father was half-Dutch and half German, and his mother was completely German (she didn't even speak English until she was about 12 years old, even though she was born in Illinois).

In terms of surnames, at my grandparents' level, we have Van Dorn, Dues (there should be an umlaut over the 'e', it's pronounced DOO-ess), Vangundy and Liming.

Put that all together, and I figure I'm about half German, a quarter Dutch, and a quarter English. And yet, the Dutch nomenclature prevails. When I was young, I always thought I looked rather English, but as I get older, I think the Dutch genome is more prominent... so all that German blood seems to have little actual impact on my genome.

-the other Doug

They're not that different from English surnames like Baker, Smith, Miller, Farmer, Painter, Fisher, Butcher and so on when you think about it.

Then there are the names like Bishop, Priest and Monk which might have had interesting stories behind them if they were originally catholic, certainly the surname Pope must have an interesting ancestral tale to go with it.

Well - unfortuately, I don't have a brother called Larry, nor a sister called Jennifer (google for both )- but my great grandfather did install the lightning conductors on the Liver birds on top of the Liver Building in Liverpool

Doug

Thank goodness the English never encounted a realtor from this town.

Though "Lyford" is apparently a corruption of the Welsh for "Crossing Where The Flax Grows."

A Moomaw pontificating? What are the odds? (I KID THE NICE PEOPLE!!!!)

In fact my Dad's family is from Walla Walla; I'm a frequent visitor! My uncles have WAY too much fun saying my last name when I visit...sigh... Seriously, despite being the butt of many jokes, Walla Walla is a nice town.

--Emily

Mine is another one that doesn't appear to make much sense in any language. Incredibly, Pinnegar is actually an English surname, though you'd be hard pressed to guess that.

It's actually Latin for "wing feather". Seems the guy who carried the eagle in the Roman army was called the "penneger". Hence the word "pennant".

And, of course (sigh...) occasionally some curious person will make that telltale leap of logic that unambiguously identifes a keen and insightful mind, and ask me whether people ever comment on the fact that my last name rhymes with "vinegar". It's always refreshing to encounter someone who has a good, solid grasp of the fundamentally and glaringly obvious. (The last person to ask this deathless question was my financial advisor. This I found disturbing.)

My last name is not pronounced very politely in English. In fact, I'm not sure it will get past the censoring

That's rather typical for us Dutch, my boss is called 'Pee'.
But we do have the most brilliant word describing a female astronaut: zweefteef.

First lier doesn't have a chance...

My family name, Woodbury, is thought to be derived from the Danish for Wild and Burg, or the 'Wild Borough'. The Woodbury castle was built in Cornwall prior to the Norman invasion. The Woodbury's fled with the puritans to New England in 1623, and get this, William and John Woodbury were granted the charters for both Salem and New Salem.

William's great great grandson, Jeremiah, converted to Mormonism in 1840. He was in the Third wagon train to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, and his grandson Willian, my great grandfather, was among the first children born in the desert.

So I have Wild Danes, Polygamist and witches, and if I have to come back with a bigger story, wait until you hear about my mother's family...

Edit - year, based upon a list of the founders and settlers of the first Puritan settlement, Cape Ann & Naumkeag, 1623-1627:

Allen, Balch, Conant, Cushman, Gardner, Gray, Jeffrey, Knight, Lyford, Norman, Oldham, Palfrey, Patch, Pickryn, Winslow, Woodbury.
In ~ 1627 some of these families resettled in Salem.

My own, Borges, comes from a portuguese knight back in the middle ages, Rodrigo Anes, that fought aside the king of France Phillipe Augustus, and helped releasing the city of Bourges from a siege, so brave and passionate he was on his task that he was named the Chevalier de Bourges, or the Bourges' Knight.
When he returned to Portugal he established himself in Trás-os-Montes, NE of the kingdom and with the passing of time the name became what I have today. I even got a coat of arms!

You forgot the motto:

"Per astra ad vorago"

Chris

edit: found a better word

Like we'd said in Parsis : et voilà !

Huumm! I liked that!
But I have already one...:
Concussus Surgo