From the 1920s to the 1940s, brothers Paul Glee Waner (1903-1965) and Lloyd James Waner (1906-1982) played major league baseball, primarily for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Many Pirates fans of the era named their kids after either Paul or Lloyd, and some named their kids after both Paul and Lloyd. In January of 1940, for instance, Jack and Dorothy Munyon of Pittsburgh named their son Paul Lloyd Munyon. A couple of years earlier, a St. Louis mother named her twin boys Paul Glee Kraatz and Lloyd James Kraatz. (From the article: “The Waners have had baseball teams, cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, hogs, race horses and now even twins named after them.”)
Where did Paul Glee Waner get his gleeful-sounding middle name? One source claimed he was born Paul John Waner, but his middle name was changed at the age of six after he received a shotgun from his curiously named Uncle Glee.
[Here’s another set of twins named for famous people of the ’30s.]
Sources:
- 1940 U.S. Census
- “Around the Town.” Pittsburgh Press 29 Jan. 1940: 7.
- “Pirate Platter: Named After Waners.” Pittsburgh Press. 29 Jul. 1938: 29.
- Paul Waner – Society for American Baseball Research
Image: © AP
Big Poison & Little Poison — those were their nicknames when they played for the Pittsburg Pirates.
The name Glee is also the middle name of their cousin, so it most likely was always Paul’s middle name as well.