Stuff Hillbillies Like: Middle Names

Hilbillies are rarely creative. They tend to celebrate destruction with all the passion of a crack-fueled chimpanzee does.

Hillbillies revel at videos of high-speed chases, although some of it is to catch an image of the relatives. They invented smash-up derby, which combines two of their favorite loves: self-mutilation and pulling down an item's intrinsic value.

Some hillbillies believe that the oldest profession is Professional Wrestling, which they follow with a religious fervor. Again, the notion of destruction enthralls the hillbilly.

Creative writing, it would seem, just wouldn't appeal to the hillbilly. And, you're right: prose and poetry are beyond the hillbilly. Except if it's the creation of middle names for their newly-born social pariah.


Here the hillbilly becomes a Be-bop jazz-fusion artist. A hillbilly mother will often insert several middle names into their male children: Billy Bob Joe-Joe, Joe Bob John-John, or Dale Earnhardt Bob... The list and variations go on like the riffs of a Miles Davis sonic soul exploration.

Why so many middle names? It's actually because the female hillbilly is trying to hedge her bets in actually using the name of the child's father in the middle-name string. She usually starts with all of her first cousins and works up the family tree, making careful notation to add the supposed names any traveling carnival workers.

This theory is further verified in the hillbilly approach to naming a female hill-baby. Names include Sue Ellen Bob, Billie Joe Bob, Bobbie Jo Billy, etc.