The Go Family History

[Fireand'chutes77]

I've had a few of these questions bopping around my head for a while now....

Where do you think the Go family came from? What was their original ethnicity? How many generations ago did they arrive on the shores of Yankeeland, and then reach Chicago? What is the age range of Team Go? What were their original names, before adopting the Shego, Hego, Mego, and Wego monikers?

As for the first few questions, I've often heard "the Balkans" or "the Mediterranean." I'm not very good at judging ethnicity - my area's fairly homogeneous, and I don't live near a huge city like New York - so I don't know what basis people are making that guess on. Probably, it's because anything to do with Med is considered sultry, foreign, and exotic, and therefore sexy.

My pie in the sky guess as to the Go's ancestors? Montenegro. Why? It's got four syllables! :P

If a foreign-ancestry is used, then the bloodline has to be "diluted" to get to the Caucasian complexion of the current Go generation.... Would a great-grandfather give enough genetic distance?

And then there's the issue of where the finances for the Go Tower (and the jet, and the suits, and the tech) came from; even if the Go kids became wards of the state after the comet strike, the guv'ment wouldn't prop up all that money, at least not in the beginning. The Gos were probably independently wealthy, but not ostentatiously - perhaps Great-Grandfather Go made a fortune selling some small, seemingly insignificant, yet extraordinarily necessary widget to the meatpacking/shipping/transportation industries of Go City?

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Names - I've heard "Shelia" kicked around the most often for Shego. However, it doesn't seem the most original (and it's too Australian, IMHO). As for the other Gos, I've never seen too many alternatives to "Hego," "Mego," and "Wego."

Finally, the age ranges of Team Go. The Wegos, obviously, are the youngest, and from Hego's bossy attitude, I'd assume he's the oldest. For some reason, I place Mego a little older than Shego. As for the gap between them (with Shego as a base-point), I'm random guessing that Hego is 4 years older, Mego 2, and the twins 5-6.

[jeriddian]

Out of the very few facts that we have from MBS are as follows. Sibling order is definitely Hego is the oldest, then Mego is next, Shego is third and the twins are the youngest (Steve Loter settled that in one of the chats).

However, everything else is subject to speculation. It may be that MBS had a back story developed for the Go family which was never revealed, however, my impression from the chats and other interview material with Loter suggests to me there never really was anything more than what we already know.

This doesn't mean that we can't speculate though, 'chutes!

To start, I believe there was a certain progression of thinking in terms of how these characters were originally created. I believe the initial thinking in Schooley's and McCorkle's minds when they created the major characters was that there would be a major nemesis of Kim's from the beginning, who would be a woman with a past, someone who was a former hero turned bad. Eventually they would make her the sidekick of her major arch-foe, since they had to have someone competent to oppose Kim, as the arch-foe had to be a bumbler for comedic effect, as much as Ron had to be there for comedic effect. It balanced out the needs for those characters on the good and evil sides. One competent and one bumbling on each side.

When they decided to address further on the origin of that female villain character, they did something different from everyone else. All the other characters had specific names. But for some reason, they couldn't or didn't do that with this villainess. Since the "Go Team Go" story was probably envisioned at some point in the very beginning, I believe that the intention was there all along to have her come from a family of super-heroes with powers. For whatever reason, they didn't have a name for them and/or couldn't agree on one. Either because they were from "Go City" (or pseudo-Chicago), or they had to be a 'Go-getter" hero team (in essence the concept of "go" or "always on the go" was involved), someone called them the "Go Team" (or "Team Go") for short, for lack of anything better (or just for simplicity's sake). That became their last name.

Somebody took it further and asked "What do we name them individually?" And nobody could fit much with "Go", I would think. Somebody then just got generic and probably thought "Okay, older brother is male so he's a "He Go", the villainess is female so she's a "She Go", the twins will have to be "We Go", and the last brother... ....well... ....okay, make him narcissistic and call him the "Me Go", just to make it simple and have them rhyme. 'We'll give them better names later', they might have thought.... .....but they never did, and it just stuck.

Anyway, that's my speculation on how those names came about. As far as MBS, those are their real names, as they never thought any further than that. But one could speculate on their real names for sure. Of course, that's tied in with their ethnicity to some degree.

Now as to 'chutes questions.....

1) Ethnicity is totally in the air. The most common suggestion of Italian, or Mediteranean was the most frequently tossed about likelihood on RSN and FFnet ( as much for her personality as her looks). And it would certainly fit with Shego glistening black hair. Italian in this case of course would be southern Italian, as Northern Italians (Milanese for example) actually tend to be light haired. But the Mediterraneans are also darker of skin, almost swarthier in some cases, which does not fit Shego's (or her family's) skin tone. Mediteranean stock refers to any of the areas bordering that sea, so the ethniciyt of being mediterranean could come from anywhere along its shores, that being Spain, Southern France, Italy, the Balkans, Greece, the Middle East or even the Northern African countries. The key is dark black hair with olive toned skin in general. But there's no reason why just because she has black hair that she has to come from the Mediterranean. Black Irish, for example to a similar stock appearance. However, because of her lighter skin tone, I think you could make her family come from anywhere in Europe. Just look at Catherine Zeta-Jones. If anyone could fit the physical profile of Shego, there you are. And she's Welsh. You could say the same for her brothers. My personal choice for her is either Bavarian or, my favorite, Spanish (Andalucia province). Could she be Slavic (Montenegro)? Sure, but I don't think it as likely, personally. But there's no need for a "dilution" to get her family's skin color lighter. Just don't make them as coming from a dark Mediterranean stock.

I think their ancestors probably came in through Ellis Island, and have been here about three or four generations. They are not blueblood by any menas. They're lower middle class, working class people.

2) You're making the assumption that their parents died when the comet struck the kids. I don't think that's a given. In "Go Team Go", it looked like the comet struck a tree house, some place where you would find the kids, but not necessarily the parents. So their parents may very well still be alive, just not super-powered. They just are't part of the storyline.

3) Financing? Well, if a super-powered group of individual's with tremendous abilites apporached your govenrment with an offer to be your city's SWAT Team, don't you think they would seriously consider funding that? (Think of all the money they would save using them instead of traditional SWAT Teams). Sure, you could make them independently wealthy, too, either in their own right or from an antecedent family member. If so, I agree it would be one of the blue collar type businesses you suggest.

4) Age range: we know Shego is mid-20's, so make her 25. That makes Mego about 27 or 28, and Hego would be 30 or 31. The twins are much younger I think, about 15 or so.

Now, original names: Hmmmm......tough.....

5) Last Name: Go..... Go is a fairly common Chinese surname, but after a search I couldn't find any Western surnames that come close to that pronunciation for letter "G". These are the closest I could find:

Coe
The primitive word Co is an elevation, exalted. Koh, in the Coptic, is a rock; koh, Persic, a hill; Coey, Gaelic, a hero, literally, a dog. Lower says that Coe is a Norfolk provincialism to designate "an odd old fellow."

Cole
An abbreviation of Nicholas, common among the Dutch

I think this is wide open. You could claim any nationalaity name-wise, But I don't see her as oriental in any way. The Go's are European stock all the way I think. Now coudl there be a completely different last name? Sure! "Go" would simply be their public persona last name.

First names.....wow, even tougher. I'm going to have to think about this one and get back to you on their real names.

[GoTeamGirl]

I've been interested in this for quite a lot of time as well. It's such a mystery! There isn't a lot to work with from the show...

I'm not sure what to think of first names, but I'm not sure if Go is really their last name. Perhaps they just chose the name "Team Go" because they all had the word "go" in their names (whether the names be real or not). I know Shego has been called Miss Go in some episodes, but perhaps it is for lack of a last name given, and it's just easier to say Miss Go than to ask around for a last name.

I have the impression that if their names were something made up for Team Go, like an alternate personality type of thing, they were made up by Hego. I can just see him doing that at coming up with those types of names.

[Rob]

I tend to like to think that their hero names are shortened derivatives of their given names... and there are many common (and potentially uncommon) first names that could return the first syllables. I haven't given too much thought to specific names, though... (Henry or Hector, Melvin, Sheila, Wendell and Wesley... :P)

As far as extrapolating a last name from "Go", I imagine there could be a lot of names that could be used, but I've only given thought to two in particular:

Golightly - a rather fanciful name, made memorable by Audrey Hepburn's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's (and has spawned at least two real-life namesakes). Shego definitely comes off as the type who would not want to associate with a name like that whatsoever.

Gordon - a rather ordinary name. Oddly enough, I thought of this because of NASCAR racer Jeff Gordon, after hearing his ill-fated performance in the 7th inning stretch at Wrigley "Stadium" yet again (it's a popular drop on sports radio, particularly the Jim Rome Show).

[TransWarpDrive]

The "Go" can also be derived from such surnames as Gough (pronounced "Gow" or "Goff"); or "Gogh" (pronounced "GO"); as in "Vincent van Gogh."
Or maybe they took the name "Go" simply because they were located in Go City.

[Rob]

The "Go" can also be derived from such surnames as Gough (pronounced "Gow" or "Goff"); or "Gogh" (pronounced "GO"); as in "Vincent van Gogh."
Or maybe they took the name "Go" simply because they were located in Go City.

Hey, it could be short for "Gozer".

Now that would be some family heritage...

[TransWarpDrive]

The "Go" can also be derived from such surnames as Gough (pronounced "Gow" or "Goff"); or "Gogh" (pronounced "GO"); as in "Vincent van Gogh."
Or maybe they took the name "Go" simply because they were located in Go City.

Hey, it could be short for "Gozer".

Now that would be some family heritage...

Although IIRC, the destroyer's name in "Ghostbusters" was spelled "Gozur."
- Not that it matters....

[Cody MacArthur Fett]

Well, I don't have my HJ version of Shego's family history written out yet so history's in flux one my end, to a certain extent. But I can say (write down quickly) that it does involve Shego's Great-Great-Great-Aunt on her father's side being Mim's mother, and her mother's family coming from a long line of Japanese warriors going back all the way to the founding of Yamauchi (one of her ansentors was pivital in the School's founders securing a beachhead in Japan . . . on a mountain).