Baby born to sauerkraut-eating champ, named Frank (for kraut brand)

In August of 2002, Brenda and Allen Lashley of Wisconsin welcomed a baby boy named Edward Allen Frank Lashley.

The baby’s first two given names honor family members — his maternal grandfather and his father, respectively — but the third does not.

So where did “Frank” come from?

Sauerkraut!

When she was seven months pregnant, Brenda “gobbled down more than a pound of sauerkraut…at the Kraut Festival in Franksville, Wis., to claim her title as the women’s World Champion kraut eater. She took home a trophy and $100.”

Following the win, she and her husband “figured why not add Frank to make it Edward Allen Frank” after the sauerkraut brand, Frank’s Kraut, which was originally manufactured in Franksville.

(The fact that Frank’s Kraut was made in Franksville is just an interesting coincidence. Franksville got its name in the 1870s — decades before the sauerkraut company came to town — and was likely named for either a surveyor or a railroad man called “Frank.”)

Sources:

• “Baby Named for Kraut Firm; Mom Is Champion Sauerkraut Eater.” Capital Times 22 Aug. 2002.
• Brien, Stephanie. “Racine woman gains fame for naming son after sauerkraut.” Journal Times 14 Oct. 2008.
• Franksville: The First 100 Years (1975)
• News of the Weird.” Berkeley Daily Planet 25 Jun. 2002.