William V. Mong

[Jim Roots]

Just wondering if anyone knows the ancestry of William V. Mong ... more to the point, how he got such an unusual name. And what does the "V." stand for?

Jim

[Rick Lanham]

Mong seems to be a Norwegian name, according to Ancestry.
A newspaper article says that although he was playing oriental parts in the
movies, he doesn't have any Asian heritage, being descended from
early Pennsylvania-Dutch families. He was born in PA, and in at least
one census, says his father was born in Ohio.

William V. Mong's father was William Hushire Mong. His mother was Louise _____.
I don't see the full middle name in my searches on ancestry or brief
newspaper searches.

At least one time William V. Mong is listed as William C. Mong. His mother might
be the woman on this Find-A-Grave page, where one of the children is
William Clyde Mong. So maybe the real middle name was Clyde?
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... d=35456992" target="_blank

William V. Clyde used the "V." on official document such as a passport application though.

Rick

[Jim Roots]

Mong seems to be a Norwegian name, according to Ancestry.
A newspaper article says that although he was playing oriental parts in the
movies, he doesn't have any Asian heritage, being descended from
early Pennsylvania-Dutch families. He was born in PA, and in at least
one census, says his father was born in Ohio.

William V. Mong's father was William Hushire Mong. His mother was Louise _____.
I don't see the full middle name in my searches on ancestry or brief
newspaper searches.

At least one time William V. Mong is listed as William C. Mong. His mother might
be the woman on this Find-A-Grave page, where one of the children is
William Clyde Mong. So maybe the real middle name was Clyde?
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... d=35456992" target="_blank" target="_blank

William V. Clyde used the "V." on official document such as a passport application though.

Rick

Mysterious. Norwegian doesn't sound quite right to me, but Pennsylvania Dutch does sound right. German or Balkan ancestry of some sort? I know the Scandinavian languages are closely related to German, but "Mong" sounds like it came from somewhere south or east of Germany, not north and west of it.

Maybe the "V." serves the same purpose as the "S." in "William S. Hart" and the "O." in "David O. Selznick"...

He just happened to pop up a lot in silent comedies I've been re-watching lately. Before, I had only noticed him in two or three films; then he showed up in practically every second comedy I ran.

Jim

[Rick Lanham]

Here's what Ancestry says. It could be wrong of course.

Mong Name Meaning Norwegian: habitational name from a farmstead in Rogaland, probably originally named in Old Norse as Mángr, from már ‘gull’ + angr ‘small fjord’. Korean: unexplained.
Source: Dictionary of American Family Names ©2013, Oxford University Press

41,786 Historical Documents with Mong on Ancestry
11,033 Birth, Marriage, and Deaths 8,671 Census and Voter Lists 1,819 Military Records 2,894 Immigration Records 17,369 Member Trees

/////
I searched another Mong family tree on Ancestry and they think their oldest known Mong came from the area between France and Germany. So that makes me think the name could have originated one place, but the descendants moved more than once.
////

Rick

[Harold Aherne]

Some Scandinavian names are monosyllabic and end with *ong or *ang, and they can sound Chinese when combined with certain consonants (cf. ND's former tax commissioner, Corey Fong).

There was an actor of the 1940s and 50s named William Ching, and no, he doesn't look the way his name suggests he might look. The name is derived from Chingford, an English village.

-HA

[boblipton]

Ching's best-remembered role is probably as Hepburn's stiff of a boyfriend in Pat and Mike.

Bob

[Lamar]

The leading air ace of WWII was Richard I. Bong and he was from Wisconsin of Swedish family. Bong was originally Bång.

[Jim Roots]

Some Scandinavian names are monosyllabic and end with *ong or *ang, and they can sound Chinese when combined with certain consonants (cf. ND's former tax commissioner, Corey Fong).

There was an actor of the 1940s and 50s named William Ching, and no, he doesn't look the way his name suggests he might look. The name is derived from Chingford, an English village.

-HA

Always amazed by what I can learn from this site!

Jim