A Whale of a Tale

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Every good story starts with a fish. 

Except Shakespeare, and Dickens, and Jane Austen but they're all English. This is an American story. The great American novel is Moby Dick. Actually the whale is an aquatic mammal, and the novel starts with 'Call me Ishmael', and I'm no Herman Melville, but we start this literary masterpiece niche blog there nonetheless. We shall see if this turns into a saga (thinking of every high school kid who slogged through Moby Dick wondering if Melville was paid by the word) or a little novella. If the former, I'll try to keep it more interesting that everyone's favorite in classic literature. I don't ultimately know how this story will end because I continue to make new discoveries. But I already have a lot of material so hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do.

So the fish in our story is a perch. The perch a freshwater gamefish. Some things to know about perch are that they are found throughout Europe in rivers and lakes. They are predators. They are also known for putting up a good fight which makes them a popular catch for sport fishermen. 


They also have big eyes. In fact, the best way to catch a perch is to take an eye from another perch and put it on a bait hook. You can find video-instruction on how best to pop the eye out and hook it. 



Apparently this works so well that the fishing industry made it so you can skip all that and just get the lure.


If you are looking for one, check out this amazing (Scent Infused!! Fish absolutely love it!!) product.

So what's up with a fish in a genealogy blog? I'm no fisherman. If I find myself on Survivor Season 31 and am forced to fish to feed the group, I'll definitely be voted off the island.

Well, it turns out the name Vokoun derives from the Czech word vokoun or ‘perch’ denoting either a perch fisherman or a person thought to resemble a perch specifically from voko meaning ‘eye’. It could also be a nickname for someone with expressive eyes. The feminine form is Vokounová. For what its worth, the Moravian dialect (Moravia is the eastern half of the Czech republic) substitutes a ‘w’ for the ‘v’.

So the next time someone calls you a ‘fish’, you should say ‘that’s a predator fish to you buddy and, by the way, my kind is known to put up a good fight.’ I can’t be responsible for what happens next but know that I am standing behind you. Somewhere.

Vokoun is a pretty unusual name but less so, I've been told, in the Czech Republic. One of life's truisms is that when you have an unusual name, be prepared for lots of misspellings and miss-pronunciations. But you have to expand your sense of the possible when doing record searches required for genealogy. Some of the spellings I've run into include: Vokun, Vokown, Vohaun, Voklun, Vokouv, Vokorm, Volsoun, Vokousn, Wokun, Wokoan and many more. Fortunately genealogy websites help one sift through possible matches otherwise the search for family connections would probably be too difficult for an amateur like me. But I've already made many cool discoveries and I expect to find more.

Anyhow, back to the fish. The connection to the name reminds me of my granddad, Eddie Vokoun, son of Rudolph one of the seven brothers. He didn't get a a lot of vacation during his working years but when he did, fishing was his happy place. I see him in a boat with his favorite Coors beer, rod and reel in hand, enjoying his day. I hope he caught a lot of perch.



Comments

  1. CarvokApril 18, 2022 at 9:02 AM

    There are Vokouns in Nebraska who pronounce their name differently with accent on second syllable rather than first. Bob Vokoun's children met them years ago when they were touring with Impact Productions, a Christian drama/music ministry. Some of the Nebraska Vokouns are dairy farmers. About 35 years ago I received a call from one of them who was in St Louis for a dairy farmers' convention. She explained that she found our name in the phone book and wondered if we were related. We talked for a while but were not able to identify a common ancestor. But if Rudolph had six brothers, it seems reasonable to think they must be related in some way.

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  2. CarvokApril 18, 2022 at 9:12 AM

    There is a touring Czech girls' choir, Jitro (meaning Daybreak) from Hradec Kralove. While attending one of their concerts when they were in St Louis, I read through the names of the performers to see if they were similar to Vokoun. But none of the names resembled ours. Perhaps they are from a different region of the Czech Republic. If interested, you can read more about them here: https://www.navonarecords.com/artists/jitro/

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