The Forrest City times., 1896-08-21
FULLY EXPANDED NAMES.
Progress of the Custom OF Using Fun
Names Instead of Initials.


Names Instead of Initials.
recent protest addressed to the Sun
against the expansion of the late I'll. C.
Burners name serves to call attention
to the fact that the habit of using Chris
tian names in full is comparatively new
in this country. The habit of bestow-
ing NOR, than one Christian name upon
a child was not usual 100 or l5c years
ago. Colonial worthless usually had a
single Christian name. Few famous
men of the revolutionary period bore
more than one Christian name. John
Quincy Adams was the first president
with a middle name, and 16 presidents
were blessed with but one single name
each. Every president but one since
johnson. however, has had two Chris
tian names, tor Grover Cleveland con-
ceals baptismal Stephen.
Few literary men of the colonial pc
riod and of he republics early years
bore middle names. Cotton Mather,
John Cotton, Benjamin Franklin, Joel
Barlow and Thomas Payne at once come
to mind. William Writ, Washington
Irving and Philip Freneau are later ex-
was the desire TO preserve a record of
revolutionary and colonial ancestors
that led to the giving of two or more
Christian names in the first quarter of
the century and earlier. At any rate,
men with such names began to be con-
spicuous in politics, literature, art, the
church and most other fields before the
middle of the century. Edgar Allan
Poe would hardly be recognizable mas,
querading under bare initials. Charles,
Fenno Hoffman would look equally
strange as c. f. Hoffman, and so of two
or three other men of the time. But the
use of the full first and middle name
was not general.
The usual thing was the full Christian
name with the middle initial and this
usage was so well recognized, especially
as characteristic of politicians, that
Lowell's "John p. Robinson" was IN
stantly accepted as the exactly proper
cognomen for the character portrayed.
Those were the days of the James j.
Folks, the Thomas III. Bentons and the
Paul II. Haynes, though the old-time
simplicity of single Christian names
had not altogether disappeared. Even
III. w. Longfellow is not an unfamiliar
form. Whittier was widely known to
his countrymen as John g., and several
other famous men who lived we'll on to
the end of the century were popularity
known by their initials only, or by the
first name and middle initial James
Russell Lowell, who is always spoken of
<h,1c at f,t1 han otnna1 hie Lat
ters -. r. Lowell" He was seldom
called by his countrymen, as the Eng
lish called him, Russell Lowell"
The taste for using the full first and
middle name seems to be confined in
this country 10 literary and more or less
fashionable persons. 1t is still unusual
in politics and in business. 1t is almost
general among the literary men that
have begun To attract attention within
the last IL or Is years. Mr.. Howells is
oftener William Dean Howells than he
was 90 years ago, but how many readers
of Frank Stockton's books know what
his middle initial, r." stands for? So
ciety believes itself English in using the
full first and middle names, but, as a
matter of fact, the usage, save in for
NAL way, is less common in Great Brit
ain than most persons think. Indeed,
the bestowing of single Christian
name seems TO be more usual there than
here, and while in this country the use
of single initial is accepted almost as
evidence of illiteracy, it is not unusual
among distinguished and highly accom-
plished men in Great Britain. An ex-
animation of distinguished British
names from the fourteenth century to
the present time would show compara-
lively few double Christian names. In
literature the men with more than one
Christian name are chiefly con-
fined to the present century. and after
Byron, Shelly, Coleridge and Swinburne
have been named, those of two Chris.
tian names are rare.-N. Y. Sun.