His Uncle Was Fearless

Supreme Court Justice and civil rights icon Thurgood Marshall's forename has an interesting history.

In honor of his paternal grandfather, Thurgood was given two first names, Thorneygood and Thoroughgood, when he was born. When Thurgood's grandfather, a former slave, had joined the U.S. Army, he hadn't been sure what to call himself. So he signed up under both names and later wound up getting two sets of retirement checks. In time, grandson Marshall would decide he preferred the name Thoroughgood. In the second or third grade, he would shorten it to Thurgood. [Link]

His mother's family had its share of unusual names as well.

His maternal grandfather, Isaiah O. B. (for Olive Branch, he said) Williams, also went to sea, came home with money and a taste for opera and Shakespeare. He opened a grocery on Baltimore's Den-meade Street, and sired six children. The first was Avonia Delicia and the second Avon (both for the bard's river), the third was Denmedia Marketa (for the store), another was Norma Arica (he heard Norma in Arica, a Chilean port) and the remaining two, for reasons lost to history, were Fearless Mentor and Ravine Silestria. [Link]

Rehnquist Eulogized as Superstitious Descendant of a Swedish Embezzler

From New York (N.Y.) Newsday:

Rehnquist Was a Man of Many Passions

By CALVIN WOODWARD
Associated Press Writer

September 4, 2005, 4:03 PM EDT

WASHINGTON -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was a man of many interests.

[snip]

In a recent disclosure, Rehnquist told about how he dropped his middle name, Donald, in high school and adopted an old family name, Hubbs, instead. This arose from a chance meeting his mother had with a numerologist.

After the man correctly guessed some statistics about the family, he said the high school student would be more successful in life if his middle name began with H.

[snip]

Grandson of Swedish immigrants, Rehnquist said his name apparently derives from a small town near the farm where his grandfather grew up.

"I found out more than I wanted to about my Swedish ancestors," he said. "One of them in the 17th century was executed for having embezzled funds from an estate for which he was the steward."

[snip]

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An Important Day in Vermont

From The (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) Coventry-Record:

Former Coventry Town Clerk Recalls Encounter With Sandra Day O'Connor

BY SCOTT WHEELER, Special To The Caledonian-Record
Saturday July 2, 2005

Thelma Wilcox, the town clerk of Coventry between 1974 and 1994, will never forget the visitor who walked into her office one day.

"I was doing some work when somebody walked in," she recalled Friday. "I looked up and there was Sandra Day O'Connor. She didn't introduce herself. I just knew who she was."

The Supreme Court justice was visiting the area to research some of her family's history.

[snip]

Much has been written about the fact that Judge Rehnquist is a part-time resident of Greensboro, but little has been written about O'Connor's connection to the region.

Her ancestral roots are in Coventry. The Day Cemetery on the Pine Hill Road in that community is named after her ancestors, and she has a number of distant relatives still living in the region.

In 2002 O'Connor and her brother H. Alan Day published a book called "Lazy B" about their lives growing up on the family's ranch in Texas. In the book they mention their family's connection to Vermont and how their grandfather, H.C. Day, risked everything by abandoning the stability of his boyhood community for the adventures and risks of the Wild West.

[snip]

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