Had to share this one with you – I went to high school in the late 80s with a kid named Delando Cotton. I have always wondered just what would possess African-American parents to name their son Delando Cotton. So I came up with a couple of theories:

(1) His parents moved here to the Northwest from the South before he was born. In a fit of home-sickness, they gave their newborn son a name that calls to mind their Southern roots, but didn’t realize until too late that it *also* calls to mind the first line of the Confederate battle hymn,
“Dixie.”

(2) His parents just have a really warped sense of humor …

He was a year ahead of me in school, and I didn’t know him well enough to ask how or why his folks gave him the name they did. I’ll probably always wonder…

– S.