The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-16 00:00:00

Nominal Nonsense.

The Round Table makes some most amusing re-
marks on this subject, and asserts that Young
America's constitutional disregard for traditional
customs would take no very surprising direction—
were it to challenge the right of one generation to
decide for another the name it is to bear for life,
irrespective of the tastes and preferences of the
latter. Boys in America choose their business or
calling simply as it suits themselves, and not on any
account whatever on the recommendation of parents.
Why, therefore, asks the Round Table should they
more cheerfully accept names that are inapplicable,
and of which, if distasteful, they cannot divest them-
selves? With few exceptions, it asserts, people have
abundant reason to be disgusted with their names.
Anybody who likes, may learn how the use of two
or more names was taken by the Romans from the
Etruscans; how names apparently devoid of signi-
fication have come by elision, or corruption, from
patronymic, local, business, official, or other de-
scriptive.terms. How surnames began to be used
in the 10th century, and transmitted from father to
son in the succeeding one ; how Fitz (fils), Ben,
Ap, Mac o', prefixed to a name, and -ing, -vitch,
-son -s, at its close, signify son of, and many other
facts on the subject. Admiral Farragut was lately
informed in print that his name signified a "sharp
sword," and was borne in a slightly modified form
by a gigantic pagan gentleman who challenged
Charlemagne, but his aspect was so tremendous
that the Emperor sent a substitute. "It matters

little," it affirms, " when our surname testifies that
our forefathers followed some occupation, in which
we take anything but pride, but it is uncomfort-
able to know that a number of highly respectable
appellations--King, Bishop, Pope, Al)bott, Parsons,

Deacon, Dean, Prior—were affixed to their original
proprietors as a stigma, and signified their claim to
a bend sinister. Another style of name, which re-
flects discredit upon one's fathers, is that in which
gradual deterioration has effaced its original form—
as the Snooks's, whose progenitors resided at the Seven
Oaks, the Bumpuses from Bon I?epos, or the Plants,
a branch of the Plantagenets, for in such cases it is
manifest that the owners of the name must not only
have had vulgar associates, who alone could be cap-
able of such transformation, but that their own
self-respect was too little or their ignorance too
great to resist the encroachment, as they might
have done in writing, the plan adopted by the Eng-
lish families, whose names--pronounced Beecham,
Chunzley, Marchbanks, Arcialeaemz—are still spelled
Beauchamp, Cholmoil(kley, Marjoribanks, Arce-
(leckne." Of course absolute precision would not be
desirable. No one who bad frequently to sign his

name need lament the old Welsh custom of string-
ing together an entire pedigree by ups until the
name resembled the House that Jack Built, and we
must respect the economy with which the descen-
dants of a line of ap Owens ap Evan ap Thomas,
and so indefinitely to ap Harry or op Hugh, went
back to first principles, and, discarding the connect-
ing links, became 'P'arry, or 'P'zigh. These patrony-
mics have the recommendation which names derived
from residence, employment, or personal appear-
ance have not—that they alone retain any signifi-
cance beyond the lifetime of the generation which
acquires them. And although there are those who
resent the apparent evidence given by a directory
to the exceeding miscellaneousness of their connec-
tions by remote descent—a miscellaneousness which
is increased when we remember that there are some
thirty variations, quite dissimilar in form, which sig-
nify descent from William; that, Gow being Welsh
for Smith, M‘Gowan and Smithson are identical
except as to nationality. Even this objection to
the patronymic is removed by the reflection that
Christian names were originally bestowed upon com li
-
panic. at a tirno, oo bl.at uot ouc, Lub a clozCal or a
hundred Williams, Janieses, or Thomases gave their
names to descendants who had no relationship to
one another. Then we have numbers of flatly con-
tradictory names, as Duncan (" brown") Gray,
Priscilla (" ancient") Young, Maurice (" dark-
coloured") White—which last needs only that its
owner should be a negro to complete the folly ; and
of pleonastic names, such as Brian (" strong")
Strong, or Laban, Susan, or Blanche (all meaning
"white") White; beside pleonasm of the Welsh kind
which eliminates the ap, but in a meaningless man-
ner reiterates such names as John Johns, Evan
Evans, James James. Occasionally (the Round
Table further remarks) we see persons apply to the
Legislature to relieve them from the infliction of a
name which is intolerable. It is a national faith in
America that a man is the architect of his own for-
tunes. To carry out the theory, it only needs that
every man should be the architect of his own name
literally, as he now is metaphorically.