Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1872-07-05
The Naming of Children.

One of the most common, foolish
and mischievous habits is that of nam
ing babies after historic characters, or
persons who have achieved coEtempor-
aneous distinction. The smaller the
chance the children have of ever achiev-
J ing any resemblance to those with whose
title they are crushed from the first, the
greater the likelihood of the bestowal of
such titles. A narrow and ignorant
man, living in some rurul and semi-civ-
ilized, region, is more inclined to call his
boy, born under every disadvantage of
circumstances, after some celebrated poet
or scholar, than wealthy and cultivat-
ed citizen would be ON whom fatherhood
had fallen. A woman to whom fate has
always been unkind, whom poverty and
toll have narrowed and vulgarized, blind
ly reaches out toward the ideal by stamp
ing her graceless and commonplace
daughter with name acquired from
popular romance. 1t may be said that
fair names may exercise favorable in
huence, and serve as models and patterns
for the namesake. So they may. if there
be any similarity between the two; but
when there is not, when the two natures
are opposite, perchance antagonistic, the
heavy capital overweighs and weakens
the slender column. Names, to be BEN
efcial and inspiring to their bearers,
must either find or beget corresponding
tendencies.
The injury William Shakespeare, John
Milton, George Washington, Daniel
Webster, and hundred others have
done at the baptismal font can never be
reckoned. 1t Is doubtful which would
have been the better-that they should
not have been born, or that the nominal
wearers of their honors should not have
been. l am sure hundreds of promising
and naturally clever boys have been
spoiled by in discretions of nomenclature.
How cana sensitive and competent youth,
with an ardent proclivity to and many
gifts for literature. obey the bent of his
inclination when everybody is aware
that he is William Shakespeare Jones,
or Smith, or Brown, or anything else
He evidently shrinks from comparison,
dreading lest his efforts, credible as they
may be, should be made contemplate
thereby. Can healthy, impulsive,
warm-blooded lad, with George Wash
ington thrust upon him, be expected to
accomplish anything, knowing as he
must that George Washington has al
ways been portrayed as the most natur-
ally perfect and momentous of morals
Who shall say how many retiring, clois-
tered natures have been embittered by
discovering in their first thinking years
how ridiculous their parents had made
them by styling them Napoleon Bona
parte OF course they only wrote their
initials. and then were perpetually hor-
riied to hear themselves called Nota
Bene Virgins or Take Notice Simpson.
Boys bubbling over with animal spirits,
and fond of adventure, have doubtless
been driven to vicious extremes by hav-
ing John Calvin or John Knox tackled
to their patronymics. The entire law of
their being prevented them from initiating
those ascetic theologians, and so they de-
liberately became prolifgate from con-
tradiction and vague sense of the
wrong that had been put upon them. l
have known MelaDcthons and Wilber-
forces to be thieves. and Solomons and
Solons to be circus clowns and | make
no question but the former went in dis
gust to the opposite extreme, or that the
latter were resolved to carricature the
ancient sages by becoming the most mel
ancholy of FOOLS" Juiiets Question
Ansaoered." By Julius Henri Broacne,
IN July GALAXY.