Neighbors: Deli clerk received name Savanna after TV movie

A young woman working in the deli of the Sunmart store on 25th Street South in Fargo is named Savanna. Savanna Kukowski.

How did you get that name, Savanna? From the city in Georgia?

No.

"My mom was watching a movie on TV when she was pregnant with me," Savanna says. "It was called 'Savannah Smiles.' She liked the name, so that's what she named me."

Savanna's mother, Elly Skinner, now lives in Bakersfield, Calif., but she was living in Carrington, N.D., in 1983 when Savanna was born.

The family later moved to Jamestown, N.D., where Savanna graduated from high school.

Savanna doesn't know why her mom spelled her name differently than the TV Savannah.

She's never seen the movie, which is about a little girl named Savannah.

None of Savanna's siblings are named after TV shows. Which probably is just as well.

Savanna is a nice name. But what if her mom had taken a liking to "The Dukes of Hazzard"?

No, Savanna is better. And in keeping with her namesake, Savanna has a nice smile, too.

The question is ...

Here's another TV item, this time about the long-running quiz show "Jeopardy."

It's been in the news lately because of a contestant who has been undefeated for weeks, who has won more than a $1 million, and who was still going strong as of this writing.

The guy has correctly answered more than 1,000 questions, two of which hit close to home.

Neighbors isn't sure of the exact wording, but the contestants were asked to come up with the answers to questions reading something like this:

- A Midwestern city in which a museum dedicated to baseball player Roger Maris is located in a shopping center.

- The name of a 1996 movie in which the main character is a female police official.

The questions were asked about two weeks apart.

But the answer for both, of course, was "Fargo."

A tougher question would be how to pronounce and spell the name of "Jeopardy's" host.

Another question

Speaking of questions, this one came to Neighbors about the origin of the name of a downtown Fargo church, Pontoppidan Lutheran.

Yes, you'll have a hard time finding anyone or any place named Pontoppidan in the Bible. It's not there.

The church is named for Erik Pontoppidan (1698-1764), a Norwegian who wrote an explanation of Martin Luther's Small Catechism. It was used extensively in both Norway and Denmark, and many of the Norwegian immigrants to the United States carried his book with them.

Pontoppidan literally means "Bridgetown."

The church, by the way, is the oldest Lutheran congregation in Fargo. It was organized in 1877.

It originally was named Pontoppidan Norwegian-Danish Evangelical Lutheran Congregation.

Try fitting that name into a newspaper headline.

If you have an item of interest for this column, mail it to Neighbors, The Forum, Box 2020, Fargo, ND 58107; fax it to (701) 241-5487; or e-mail rlind@forumcomm.com