Prolific romance author Parris Afton Bonds — who co-founded both Romance Writers of America and the Southwest Writers Workshop — explained the origin of her first and middle names in an article from 1981:
“I’d like to tell you I was named after Paris, France,” Parris Afton Bonds told me as I visited her in her house outside Lewisville, “but I wasn’t. It was Paris, Kentucky.” She was, however, named after the River Afton in Scotland, and she pointed to a bottle on her bookshelf, still bearing a Schweppes label, that was filled with Afton water.
Other sources specify that Parris was in fact conceived in Paris, Kentucky.
Btw, did you know that Afton (as a girl name) has been particularly popular in Utah?
Source: Harrigan, Stephen. “Behind the Purple Page.” Texas Monthly Jan. 1981: 139-141.
So, if she was named after Paris, Kentucky, why is her name spelled with two “r”s?
Parris Island is the only place I know of with that spelling and the only other time I can recall seeing the two-r spelling is the former Maryland Governor, Parris Glendening.
Probably her parents were just being creative with the spelling.