Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1896-08-29
FULLY EXPANDED NAMES.
Progress of the Custom of Using Full
Names Instead of Initials

Progress of the Custom of Using Full
Names Instead of Initials
A recent protest addressed to the Sun
against the expansion of the late H. C.
Burners name serves to call attention
to the fact that the habit of using Chris
tan names in full is comparatively new
in this country. The habit of bestow-
ing moro than one Christian name upon
child was not usual 100 or $50 years
ago. Colonial WORTHLESS usually had
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
tan names, for Grover Cleveland con-
ceals baptismal Stephen
Few literary men of the colonial pc
Rod and of ehe 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 eN-
amples of the same kind. Perhaps it
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 he
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, chat
| I.owelrs 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 Fl. Bentons and the
| Paul III. Haynes. though the old-tilne
| simplicity of single Christian names
had not altogether disappeared. Even
| II. w. Longfellow is not an unfamiliar
form. Whittier was widely knowh to
| his countrymen as John g., and several
other famous men who lived well 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
thus at full, habitualiy signed his let
| tiers 81. 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 to 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 20 years ago, but how many readers
| of Frank StocktoD'S books know what
| his middle initial, r. stands for? So
| ciety believes itself English in using he
| full first and middle names, but, as a
| matter of fact, the usage, save in a for
NAL way, is less common in Great Brit
| ain than most persons think. Indeed,
| the bestowing of a single Christian
| name seems to be more usual there than
| here, and while in this country the use
of a 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 compare
| 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
| tan names are rare.-N. Y. Sun.
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