By BEN SMITH
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The place is named after a fake nobleman from Europe who probably never set foot here before getting killed in the American Revolution.

The "DeKalb" name has seemed an odd fit for a county that for most of its 181 years has not been particularly pretentious. Its roads are more pockmarked, its neighborhoods older and quainter and its government buildings and malls generally less flashy than those of surrounding suburbs.

But all that's changing. And it's not just because of the new Mall at Stonecrest in the southeastern corner of the county or the completion of a seven-story courthouse annex at the county seat in Decatur.

Setting the tone is county Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones, a savvy pol who, midway through his first term, began working to raise DeKalb's national profile. "We're not Mayberry anymore," Jones said.

Jones has taken numerous trips to Washington to lobby on behalf of the county.

And the feds are paying more attention to DeKalb. The county is home to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose profile has grown since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

As the county's first elected African-American CEO, Jones is seen by some observers as a rival to Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin as a voice for the metro area's black population. But Jones may have future political rivals of his own -- among them U.S. Rep. Denise Majette (D-Ga.), who stunned pundits with her upset primary defeat of former Rep. Cynthia McKinney.

DeKalb is home to the largest Democratic constituency in Georgia, key to any Democratic presidential candidate's aspirations to carry the state.

When those candidates come to the county named after Baron Johann DeKalb (he added the "Baron" to become a military officer), they won't find a county anything like the place a historian once described as inhabited by "plain people . . . poor, not highly educated."

Instead they will find an urbanized county of nearly 700,000 people, the most diverse county in Georgia, with ethnic Asians and Latinos as well as one of the most prosperous black middle-class communities in the nation.

Baron DeKalb, who aspired to greatness, likely would be pleased.