Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1901-05-16
AUTHORS NAMES.
Literary Applications, the Value of
Their Length and Breadth.

Literary Applications, the Value oil
Their Length and Breadth.
Names are something more than
mere labels and applications; they are
veritable things" says Joel Benton, in
the Junior Munsey. Certain names
are poetic and inspiring; certain
others are soporific and leaden. Could
it be possible to imagine that a
maiden named Patience or Thankful
would be otherwise than plain or
homely?
THE Puritan nomenclature, whether
Biblical or in secular hyphenated
phrases, of which there are such start
ling examples, was largely of the de-
pressing variety. TO name a child
'Barebones' or Ebenezer' seems al
most as If it would foreclose fame and
fortune against him 1t is true that
a person of real force and genius can
override great obstacles. But why
compel him to do so?
Members of a royal family often
affect long names of a dozen or more
parts, but these are mainly kept for the
christening book, and the one or two
principal ones are all that are en-
ployed or remembered. AS the royal
person bearing a name that fills the
space of a paragraph is born dis
tinguished he will remain so, whatever
name he may assume or have thrust
upon him; but with the ordinary NOR
tai the case is different. If he tries to
scale the heights of renown, the simple
and more striking his name is the
more indelibly it will be fixed in a
tickle public's memory.
"Apropos of this preamble, has any
one ever noted the fact to the extent
of giving it much emphasis that our
! American authors, for the most part,
affect long drawn out names? To the
young and aspiring author especially a
tripartite name seems to have a par
ticdiar fascination This fashion Is
perhaps partly of collegiate origin. At
any rate, whether it was done to make
future identity sure or as an affecta-
! ton the college catalogues floin time
immemoIial have recorded the whole
name of the stJ1ent, even When it
was from four t. six parts. Gu that
account, perhaps. we had WiiiaL-
Cullen Bryant, Henry Wadsworth Long
fellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allen Poe and
James Russell LOWELL but, uncollegi-
ately, Washington Irving, John G.
Whittier (the middle name rarely
spelled out), Herman Melville and
to Toll Er..s
being one name. There were excep-
tions-George Bancroft, for instance,
who won distinction at Harvard
James Fenimore Cooper supports the
rule, for he was Yale student before
he went to sea.
"Of course an extremely horizontal
ized name is not actually a college
matter; but our second generation of
authors, finding the literary Dill Ma
jores triply named, and feeling that no
two-named writer can so easily catch
the certificate of fame, soon began to
use names of three sections, even
when it was found necessary to in
vent or borrow one to fill out the num-
Der. Authors of the very minor sort,
therefore, as we'll as a few of excellent
intellectually that take great pains to
write themselves John Mortimer Jones,
Thomas Evergreen Robinson and
James Ichabod Smith to make sure of
their literary Importance.
"One would suppose, though, that
the more successful approach to re-
membrance or a high regard would be
compassed by a short appellation
rather than by long one. Alexander,
Caesar and Hannibal, as well as
Homer, Dante and Goethe, made no
parade of multiplied names, even
where more than one was actually
possessed; and they seem to be fairly
well remembered Would Napoleon
Bonaparte and oliver Cromwell have
had a larger recognition by the gener-
atoms that have followed them, or by
1 the one in which they were dominant
II they had affected a somewhat sonor-
ously syllable middle name?
Certainly George Washington. Ben.
jamin Franklin. Abraham Lincoln,
Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and
Horace Greeley are pretty well i'm
bedded in public memory with only
two name divisions. Their names are
famous because of qualities inher t
in the owners of them. Not one Of
them climbed up to notice by his
name. but each made the name debtor
TO its wearer.
ITO take another line of examples,
there are our presidents. Out OF the
25 only two had more than two names
spelled out and they are John Quincy
Adams and William Henry Harrison
The Van in Van Buren, not being an
independent name. Polk, Grant,
Hayes and Arthur had simply middle
initials. and il is safe to say there is
not one person in a hundred who can
give the midle name OF Polk, which is