I have always wondered how our great grandparents, James Knox Polk and Rose Ann Turner Sampson, came up with our grandfather’s first name and my middle name, Alonzo or Lon. Here was a couple who had little education and exposure to the world, who had all English-blooded ancestors, and who made their living farming, sheepherding, and working on public works projects. Where and how did they come up with Alonzo, the Italian version of the Old German name, Alphonse? This week, I may have found the answer.
First, I want to tell you more about the name. As I said, Alonzo is the Italian version of an Old German name. I have discovered three meanings for it: (1) ready for battle, (2) noble warrior, and (3) beloved or favored. The first appears to be the literal translation of the oldest version of the name. The second seems to be a sentimental and affectionate version of the first. And the third is hubris at its best and a load of hooey at its worse.
As with many first names, Alonzo became a surname. The first appearance of it is in a Castilian document from the early 10th Century. The holders of the name were Visgoth nobles living in Leon, a town in northern Spain. Now you can see the name is Old German, Italian, and Spanish. So how did it happen two yokels in Wayne County, Utah, gave one of their sons a non-Biblical, non-English, and mixed-origin first name?
I don’t know how popular Alonzo was in 1886, the year grandpa was born. Today, according to namestatistics.com, Alonzo is No. 451 in popularity in the United States and a mere 2.2 percent of men hold the name. I don’t know if this is good news or bad news. If they go by the short version, Lon, then I think it’s bad news. To me, Lon is what you cut every Saturday morning from the beginning of April to the end of October. At least that’s what the kids I grew up with—including my brothers , sister, and cousins—told me using different lame examples.
Now here’s where I think our great grandparents, those longtime Americans (Abraham Sampson was born in Massachusetts in 1628) of English stock, got the name Alonzo. This week I picked up a copy of A History of Wayne County by Miriam B. Murphy. James Knox Polk Sampson or J.P. Sampson, which must have been the way he signed his name, is mentioned three times.
In the first citation, Murphy says great grandpa was the founding settler of East Loa. He discovered the place when he was part of a team of surveyors who passed through Wayne County in 1874, and he built his home and staked out his farm there in 1876. The township was renamed Lyman after Apostle Francis M. Lyman visited the valley in 1893. Lyman was influential in getting the settlers to move closer to a spring to the north of East Loa. This leads me to believe great grandpa’s original farm was a little south of present-day Lyman.
The second citation covers the formation of an irrigation company for “colonizing the Fremont Valley and bringing the land under cultivation . . . erecting mills and factories, etc.” in 1879. Great grandpa was a signor of the agreement or incorporation papers.
The third citation discusses the reorganization of the same irrigation company in January 1889. Seven directors representing three towns—Loa, Fremont, and Thurber—signed the paperwork. One was Alonzo Billings, who represented Fremont, and another was J.P. Sampson, who represented Loa.
I’m not sure how many Alonzos lived in the Fremont Valley in the 1880s. When I looked at all the entries in Murphy’s index, I only found one—Brother Billings. This leads me to believe our great grandparents and the Billings were close friends; close enough for J.P. and Rose Ann to give their 10th child Brother Billings’ first name. They didn’t even give grandpa a middle name. He’s the only one out of 14 children who wasn’t given one.
If this happens to be how grandpa got his name, it’s worth asking where Billings got an Old German, Italian, and Spanish first name. A quick look on the Internet makes me think the name Billings is more English than the name Sampson. My curiosity will have to go unfulfilled. The Billings family will have to figure that one out.
1 comment:
Post a Comment