HOW BETO GOT HIS NAME

This is the true story of how young Bobby O’Rourke got his childhood nickname.

Robert Francis O’Rourke was a silver spoon baby with wealthy parents in El Paso.  His father, Pat O’Rourke, a local Irish-American politician, married into one of El Paso’s wealthiest families, with his wife (maiden name Melissa Martha Williams) running the business.   As you can see following in the O’Rourke and Williams genealogy, there is not a drop of Hispanic blood in Bobby.

Born in 1972, Bobby grew up in El Paso being taken care of by the family’s Hispanic servants who nicknamed him “Beto,” short for Roberto, Robert in Spanish.  It was a joke among them, for the servants also spoke English, the language of the O’Rourke-Williams  families.

Bobby’s parents never got the joke, nor noticed their Hispanic staff quietly laughing among themselves by addressing young Robert as… “Master Beto.”

So his folks started calling him Beto themselves.  But for the servants, he’ll always be Master Beto, as he should be for all of us.