St. Mary's gazette. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1863-1867, 1863-10-01
FAMILY NAMES.

It is vulgar notion that some names
are necessarily noble aud romantic. while
others arc necessarily mean and basc.--
Names are beautiful only in their associa-
tons. Worth, valor, genius, learning.
have converted syllablcs into poems and
words into histories. Look the British
Pecrage through, and in that bright list
there is, perhaps, not one which does not
seem to the eye aDl the imagination. pic
turcsque. Yet, in their beginnings, most
of them had nothing in sound or spelling
that could be considered glorious. How
ard IS a hog-ward; Seymour is tailor;
Leicester is a weaver: Percy is gross
! fellow: Butler is a cellar-man; Stewart is a
domcsti, servant. Vaen, We're, Hyde and
Poole sound the reverse Of heroic. Hay
is not intrinsically nobler than straw.
How is it, then, that Hay has come to rep
resent the pink of aristocsacy, Straw the
lowest of vulgar cheats? Simply by as
ISOLATION. Would the com claimants like
TO have been orr ginally called Blunt,
Craven or Gorc9 There is nothing Ill
GRAY MORE attractive than Brown. as to
either sound or letters; indeed Gray Is q
shade or so less vigorous than lis rlTal
Brown. Would any one ike to have
been known rs Roper Or Touchct, if these
familiar names had never been immortal
lied By worthy deeds? We do lot know
that Ginlct has more familiar look than
Bacon, Petty, Peel, aud Pitt. Yet these
have become by association some OF the
most reverential and gracious of English
names. Milton. Sackvillc, and Shelly
are not necessarily ari.tocratic and poctl-
cal. Had they not been glorified BY gen
Jus and by rank, they would perhaps have
been included in Mr.. Buggey's list.
Churchill. Fuller, Kidd, Quarlcs, D'nne,
Bowlrs, Quincy, and Dickens, now heuse-
hold words, borne by some of the choicest
of our national poets and humorlsts,
would certainly have been So. Not much
better as to sound are Cowper. Q 10, and
Bulwcr. People used to laugh aud joke
Mt Cecil. Talbot and Talmash would be
considered vulgar. Every one considers
! Raleigh a romantic name, but in Eli
| Walters time 1t was open to very bat
puns The same with Drake.
: Coke. too, would bc Thought low. ha,
it never been Illuminated by rhc author o
the '.InstituteS, and the owner of H,lk
would Mr. Tigg like to have been calcu
, Wren? Had there been no erudite giant
Of that name, would not Chceke have
been voted intclcrable! In truth, scarce
ly anything depends on the letter, every
thing OH the connection Of ideas. Solo
mon was the wisest Of men, and his
name is one Of the noblcst in literature;
yet TO prudent father, unless he were a
jew. would give it to his child, because
in the present generation it happens to be
ludicrously associated with old clothes. In
its Saracenic form of Solyman it would
still be considered magnificent A cur
rent jest will destroy the picturesque beau
ty of the most famous names; living
Pompcy would be set down as a niger. a
living Caesar treated as dog. Cymon is
a name which would attract the female
eye. and. perhaps, even reconcile it to the
adjunct Smyth. Mrs. Cymon Smyill
would have an air upon 4 carl. But the
f, fine feminine instinct would recoil from
Simon. And why the difference Is it
not because Cymon is associated with
Iphigeuia, and Simon with the simplcton
who met pieman coming from fair ::
One of the Objectionable names, to re-
move Which from the face of the earth,
all gods and men are called to aid, is
Villain. Yet the IIog-wards and Sty-
wards were all villains; and one of the
rroudest houses of Europe, that Of Count
Villain the Fourteenth, rcjoices in the
obnoxious name London Ihcnoum.