The Name--From Coast to Coast

Newspapers could not get enough of the Ima Hogg name stories.When Ima, age sixteen, went with her father on a trip to Hawaii in 1898, what must she have thought when she read the local paper?

         Ex-Governor Hogg of Texas now at the Hawaiian Hotel, besides being a man of force and strong convictions, has a vein of humor which finds all sorts of channels. His two daughters are named Ima and Ura, and a son is named Moore. These three names, in fact, introduced in succession, invariably have the effect originally conceived of. Miss Ima Hogg is with her father here.

--The Hawaiian Gazette, September 9, 1898.

A version of the name story appeared on this same day in a Kansas paper:

         Ex-Governor Hogg, of Texas, has a daughter named Ura, and another named Ima: Ima Hogg and Ura Hogg. He should now name a son Heza.

--The Atchison [Kansas] Daily Globe, September 9, 1898.

A year later, a longer story appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper:

Ima Hogg is the startling and decidedly non-euphonic name of the fair, winsome and pretty, curly-haired daughter of Governor James s. Hogg, of Texas, who at the Fourth of July dinner at Tammany Hall set the braves wild by a rattling Bryan and silver speech. Regarding the peculiar name of his daughter, the Governor says: “I suppose you have heard the ridiculous stories about how my daughter was named. She was named by her mother. Her mother was reading a book somewhere in which one of the characters which interested her exceptionally was named Ima. About that time the little girl came along, and she was named Ima. We never noticed the play of her name until it was called to our attention. The boys all have rational names. They are Tom, Mike, and Will.”

--The North American [Philadelphia] July 13, 1899.

         Ima was then seventeen years old. She believed what her father said, because she adored him.