Baby name story: James E. Goforth

Not long after Belgium was liberated from Germany by Allied forces in 1944, an American Tank Destroyer battalion passed through the town of Neufchâteau in southern Belgium.

A jeep carrying American lieutenant James E. “Monty” Goforth happened to stop outside the home of the Halter family, which had just welcomed a baby boy.

The Halter family “wanted the new-born baby to be named after the first American they saw,” and so the baby was named James E. Goforth Halter.

“In a few years, a little Belgian kid in Neufchateau is going to begin to wonder how in hell his name got to be James E. Goforth Halter, instead of Francois or Albert like his little friends.”

Source: “Belgian Baby Named for Monty Goforth.” Middlesboro Daily News 4 Nov. 1944: 1.

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