Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/22/nigerian-scammer-unwittingly-d.html
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“Success K. Andrew”
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Except that Paypal payments are ludicrously easy to cancel.
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In certain African countries it’s not unheard of to have English names that aren’t usually names in other Anglophone countries. Nigeria’s previous president, for example, is named Goodluck Jonathan.
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Newsflash: Nigerian scammers donate greater percentage of their income to charity than Donald Trump does!
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Exposing yourself to this sort of nonsense is silly. Consider that not all operations like this are some guy sitting in an internet café in Nigeria, but are foot-in-the-door money laundering operations for massive organised crime rings. It’ll start with something like this and lead to you opening accounts, depositing cheques and transferring money around.
So for starters, pissing off (ie taking money from) an unknown is dangerous. They really might be able to retaliate. And then there’s the fact you’re actually defrauding them too. And admitting to it. In public here. With a ton of personal information scattered around.
If you get something like this, ignore it or report it. Don’t engage. Don’t break the law.
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I found a picture of Success Kid Andrew:
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On MeetMe, there’s a rash of them that claim to be military, but don’t realize that American military use their LAST names on their uniforms. So they get a picture of a guy with “Hawkins” on his uniform and say their name is “Hawkins James.” And they’ll insist their first name is Hawkins. It always confused me because English is an official language of Nigeria but now I see why they might not think that’s a weird first name.
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Heading off-topic on a side-note,
Consider what are known as Virtue names or Puritan names, like Faith, Hope, Charity.
I’ve always liked them. I worked for a while with a woman named Joy, and always felt a little bit of an uplift when speaking her name.
Such type of names have broader history than just the Puritans http://www.familyeducation.com/life/religious-names/history-virtue-names?page=0
Virtue names are apparently trending now…e.g., this recent article was the top result in a Google search just now for “Virtue names list”: These throwback Puritanical virtue baby names are on their way back
And here, a discussion about bringing Virtue names into the 21st century: Pregnancy, Parenting, Lifestyle, Beauty: Tips & Advice | mom.com (I didn’t read every word of it, but I found it interesting, and there are lots of suggestions for names.)
Maybe @anon67050589, being a genealogist, would have some knowledge to share about Virtue names?
And on a side-side note, I’ve always been fond of the name of Capability Brown, the English landscape architect, and I had for a long time assumed that “Capability” was his given name. However, it was a nickname.
His nickname came from his fondness for describing country estates as having great ‘capabilities’ for improvement.
Who was Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown? | National Trust
But it’s how he’s known these 300 years after his birth. And if you search for “Lancelot Brown” on Wikipedia, it takes you directly to Capability Brown.
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I hate to disappoint, but that’s going to be more in the Early Colonial (U.S.) era, and I don’t do that era except in passing when I’m helping someone who has that as part of their heritage.
Generally speaking, people with that heritage have so many resources available to do their own genealogy work that they don’t need me. Even adoptees who come to me, if they have that as part of their heritage then within a very quick period of time they will have enough DNA matches with oodles of family tree data that triangulating the info is child’s play.
Another (smaller) population group that used virtue names was pre- and post Civil War African-Americans, whether slaves or free. Not so much anymore. In that case, there’s the opposite problem: virtually no records to research. And when I get someone with that heritage, I know who to get them in contact with. We all have our areas of expertise, you know?
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Faith, Hope, and Charity I could all see, and I actually knew three sisters with those names. Joy is more an emotion than a virtue. The more serious virtue names are like Prudence, Patience, Temperance, Chastity, Constance, etc. and then shit starts to get weird.* Puritan graveyards regularly have names like Silence on the stones. A name like Silence speaks volumes about the culture of the time 
*Meet Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned Barebone
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Oh yeah, for sure. In the discussion I linked to above (about 21st-century Virtue names) comments #29, 30, and 31 talk about finding the girl’s name “Submit” in someone’s family history, and speak of the importance of context in understanding why someone might think it a positive thing to name a baby that.
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So much bullshit in that thread. Those aren’t names, those are words that basic white girls get tattooed on their wrists.
Kinky.
Seriously, though, why is submitting to a patriarchal God figure different than submitting to a patriarchal husband figure? Especially if you believe as they believed then, that the husband was literally ordained by God to be head of the household. In that case, submitting to God and submitting to one’s husband are one and the same.
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Thinking of unusual names got me thinking about a local man I heard tell of, and here is a newspaper article from December 28, 1979:
I was told by someone who had known him that his friends all called him One Zero. No idea what ever happened to him and his quest to make it official…
[And oh man, are we ever off-topic for this thread. Help!, someone, and post some more discussion to get us back to Nigerian-scammer-unwittingly-donates-to-food-bank!]
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My favourite is Supply Belcher.
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I’m sure he was quite tuneful.
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Worst Abbot & Costello routine ever.
“Good luck!”
“What?”
“I said ‘good luck’.”
“I know. What did you want?”
“To wish you good luck.”
“To wish me what?”
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