The U.S. South is home to many stereotypes. Some, culled from film and literature, recall another era where genteel women sipped mint juleps on their wide front porches. Others bring to mind the “Bible Belt”. Still others reflect the mix of Creole and Cajun cultures in bayou country and the gothic and hedonistic city of New Orleans, with its strong survivor’s instinct. Whether your image of the South tends toward Gone With the Wind, the writings of popular author Anne Rice or somewhere in between, you have no doubt heard names that are undeniably “southern”. 

The first time I remember hearing a distinctly southern name was when someone referred to Tallulah Bankhead, the American actress. I immediately assumed that “Tallulah” was a stage name. It was not. Neither is it a surprising name when one considers that Ms. Bankhead was born in Alabama to a mother who also possessed a very southern name - Adelaide Eugenia Sledge.

Authors and playwrights often use the southern U.S. as a setting for their novels and dramas. One of the first to come to mind is Tennessee Williams. Steeped in angst and often set in the Deep South, his plays are teeming with southern names – Brick, Chance, Flora, Violet, and, perhaps the most well known, Blanche DuBois. Even nicknames in Tennessee Williams’ world had a southern flair – Cat on a Hot Tin Roof gives us both Big Daddy and Big Mama.

Skip forward to that ultimate girl movie, Steel Magnolias, for even more quintessentially southern names: Truvy, Shelby, Jackson, Ouiser, Annelle, and Spud are all characters that inhabit the small Louisiana town in the film.

What is the inspiration for such unique appellations?

For starters, there is the Bible Belt. Southerners are assumed, rightly or wrongly, to have intense religious fervor. Religion, some claim, is the reason for the popularity of “virtue” names, like Faith, Hope and Charity. Heritage also plays a part in the uniqueness of southern names. Early French settlers in Louisiana brought with them names with a French twist like Annabelle, Paulette and Beau. But the names that are among the most definitively southern are those that combine two names into a single first name. 

The “double name” that is so commonly associated with the South comes from the southern tradition of naming children after ancestors. Creating a first name out of two names enables parents to use a single name as a tribute to both sides of the family. In the case of women, names like Betty Sue, Mary Louise and Sue Ellen have emerged. For men, names like Billy Ray, Jerry Lee, Joe Earl and Tommy Lee are common. In another widely used convention, women’s names have been created from a combination of male and female names. Typical of this trend are names like Annie Earl, Bobbie Sue, Edna Earl and Jeri Lynn, and any woman’s name followed by “Jo” (Betty Jo, Mary Jo, Sammie Jo and so on).

For real color, there are the nicknames. Bubba, Goober, Jimbo, Junior, Prissy, Sissy, Slim and Tiny are names that could only have originated south of the Mason-Dixon Line.