Given name

“ Footnotes 1.The Bohemian name Ántonia is strongly accented on the first syllable, like the English name Anthony, and the i is, of course, given the sound of long e. The name is pronounced Anʹ-ton-ee-ah. ”

“ Some travellers tell us that an Indian had no name given him at first, but earned it, and his name was his fame; and among some tribes he acquired a new name with every new exploit. It is pitiful when a man bears a name for convenience merely, who has earned neither name nor fame. ”

“ But by his inherent principle of rule, his unquenchable patriotism, his indomitable purpose, and the imperiousness of his will, founded on a rich scholarship and a broad policy, he has spelled triumph out of difficulty, and his name will go down in twentieth-century history an example of illustrious young manhood. ”

“ For it might be argued that the first name is meant to be an individual and even isolated thing; but the last name is certainly meant, by all logic and history, to link a man with his human origins, habits, or habitation. ”

“ The religious obsession of the New England colonists is also kept in mind by the persistence of Biblical names: Ezra, Hiram, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Elijah, Elihu, and so on. These names excite the derision of the English; an American comic character, in an English play or novel, always bears one of them. Again, the fashion of using surnames as given names is far more widespread in America than in England. In this country, indeed, it takes on the character of a national habit; fully three out of four eldest sons, in families of any consideration, bear their mothers’ surnames as middle names. ”

“ It being needless to illustrate at any greater length the subject of many-worded names, we proceed to the distinctions which have been established among names, not according to the words they are composed of, but according to their signification.
§ 3. All names are names of something, real or imaginary; but all things have not names appropriated to them individually. For some individual objects we require, and consequently have, separate distinguishing names; there is a name for every person, and for every remarkable place. ”

“ The dry-click of firing-pin at our head
Will sharply recall as your name is said
Your name is like – that I say not!
It’s like a kiss on the eyes wrought
When shut, they are laden with frosty grace ... ”

“ Noun,” said Serjeant Parsing, “you do claim a big share of words. You will be making out that the names of persons belong to you next.”
11 “So they do,” replied Mr. Noun; “no matter who the persons are, their names belong to me. I have the name of every person in the world from good Queen Victoria on her throne to the raggedest beggar-boy in the street. There is not a child in Schoolroom-shire whose name is not a noun. And I have not the names of people only, but of all pet dogs, cats, birds, horses, or rabbits: Fido, Tabby, Bright-eye, Tiny, Shag, and any other pet names you can think of. ”

“ And the quite ordinary people, who do not write novels, incline to his conjectures. How else can they explain the fact that every name seems to fit its bearer so exactly, to sum him or her up in a flash? The true explanation, missed by them, is that a name derives its whole quality from its bearer, even as does a word from its meaning. ”

“ It is impossible to keep one’s name out of print. Or even one’s portrait. This veil and this hat of my maid furnish me with an incog. You should have seen the chauffeur stare at it when he thought I did not see. Candidly, there are five or six names that belong in the holy of holies, and mine, by the accident of birth, is one of them. ”

“ I will take one more instance of a name presumed to be common to the Germans and to the Celts as an illustration of the manner in which—men's names being handed down from generation to generation without, even in ancient times, any thought of their meaning—a name may survive, while the word from which it was originally derived has perished out of the language, or is retained in a sense so changed as hardly to be recognised. ”

“ The invention of original names usually takes place in the early stages of a people’s history, for a preference soon arises for established names, already borne by kindred, and as the spoken tongue drifts away, from the primitive form, the proper name becomes a mere appellative, with the original meaning forgotten, and often with a new one incorrectly applied to it. ”

“ Its high estimation is universally acknowledged; it has the suffrage of the whole world, so much so, that at all times and in all seasons its supremacy is admitted and its influence recognized. The name, the very name alone, is sufficient to excite all that is pleasant to our senses (five or seven, how many soever there may be.) ”

“ LESSON I.—NOUNS Nominative and Objective Case
First and Second Declension
VERBS
Three Persons Singular,
Present Indicative
A noun is the name of a thing or person, a verb signifies an action, an adjective a quality as good or bad belonging to a noun. The nominative case is the person who is or may be doing what the verb means; the objective case is the thing or person to which or towards which the action of the verb tends. The verb to be, denoting simple existence, not action, of course is followed by the nominative, not the objective case.
Nouns are masculine, feminine, or neuter. ”

“ Of names some are proper, and some common to many or universal, there being nothing in the world universal but names, for the things named are every one of them individual and singular. “One universal name is imposed on many things for their similitude in some quality or other accidents ”

“ Give a child a silly or ridiculous name and the chances are that the child's character will correspond with that name. Give a child a name already illustrious and the chances are also fair that the burden will prove its ruin. ”

“ I have given this letter because it explains the circumstances of my presence in Lisbon. A love quest. In the previous March, my sister’s husband, Stefan Madrillo, who is on the staff of the Spanish Embassy in Paris, had introduced me to Miralda Dominguez—the most beautiful girl in Paris as she was generally acknowledged; and although up to that moment I had never cared for any woman, except my sister, and the thought of marriage had never entered my head, the whole perspective of life was changed on the instant. ”

“ You must all have remarked the amusement and interest which children find in any notable agreement between a name and the person who owns that name, as, for instance, if Mr. Long is tall—or, which naturally takes a still stronger hold upon them, in any manifest contradiction between the name and the name-bearer ”

“ A name, therefore, is said to be relative, when, over and above the object which it denotes, it implies in its signification the existence of another object, also deriving a denomination from the same fact which is the ground of the first name. Or (to express the same meaning in other words) a name is relative, when, being the name of one thing, its signification can not be explained but by mentioning another. ”

“ Now, the first general principle about the name for anything at all is to follow common use. We speak in order to be understood. A name is only a label; as long as there is no doubt as to the thing labelled, it does not much matter which it is. ”

“ It is a peculiarity among them to address one another by the Christian name, or to speak of a man by the Christian name along with the surname, should there be need to distinguish him from another. The term "Mr." is rarely employed. ”

“ Greek or Roman-Greek, names. The present fashions in nomenclature are, however, best explained in the following letter from an English lady residing in Russia:—
'Children (and grown-up persons in their own family) are, I may say, universally called by their diminutives. In society the Christian name and patronymic are made use of, and you seldom hear a person addressed by his family name, though he may be spoken of in the third person as “Romanoff,” or “Romanova” (surnames take the gender and number of their bearers) , except by his superiors, such as a general to his young officers, &c. ”

“ What’s in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. ”

“ Hence the nominative or naming case may apply as correctly to the object as the agent. "John strikes Thomas, and Thomas strikes John." John and Thomas name the boys who strike, but in the first case John is the actor or agent and Thomas the object. In the latter it is changed. To use a nominative name is a redundancy which should be avoided. You will understand my meaning and see the propriety of the change proposed, as the mind of the learner should not be burthened with needless or irrelevant phrases. ”

“ If a person’s forenames occur differently in different books or different authorities, or occur in a different order, or the person has changed one or more of his forenames, arrange by one form (the best known or the latest) and refer from the others if alphabetically separated.
224. Arrange a nobleman’s title, under which entry is made, and the name of a bishop’s see, from which reference is made to the family name, among the personal names, not with the places. ”

“ In looking at the long string of titles fastened like the tail of a kite to the name of some Don or other grandee, one is puzzled to tell whether it is the man that belongs to the name, or the name to the man. ”

“ A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service. Yet reserve is the freedom and abandonment of lovers. ”

“ Individuals are often met whose surnames have almost dropt into oblivion by disuse, and who have been principally distinguished through life by the name of their residence, or some epithet descriptive of a remarkable personal peculiarity, or some notable incident in their lives. ”

“ If your name had been disgraced, I could understand it, as I could understand a man then going about in a mask. But the odd thing is, the persons who always want to change their names are those whose names are the most honoured. ”

“ Particular Rules for the Genitive.—1. If the nominative ends in a vowel, the genitive is like the nominative; as, trà m. a time or season, g. s. trà; so also beatha f. life, cro m. a sheepfold, cliu m. fame, duine a man, Donncha Duncan, a man's name, and many others. Except bo f. a cow, g. s. boin; cu m. a dog, g. s. coin; bru f. the belly, g. s. broinn or bronn.
2. Nouns ending in chd or rr have the genitive like the nominative ”

“ Boys' Names in the English Language
To the Reader.—I beg to make one very important remark upon this immense variety of boy's names, and that is:—Be sure and preserve the list carefully, as it will serve from which to choose names for your sons up to the number of 555, without using the same name over again. P.S.—If you should be very, very lucky, and have more than 555 sons, and want more names, call on Professor Cole, at the Book Arcade, Melbourne, Australia, and he will give you an extra list. ”

“ Well, the Bible is a great book of “names.” If you will turn up your concordances, you will find in them a long list of “names” for God. And the point to notice is that every name applied to God means something; 48every name tells us something about Him; every name is a light upon His nature. When you hear a man’s name, it tells you nothing about his character. You are not a whit nearer knowing what a man is really like for hearing that his name is John, or David, or Thomas, or Joseph. ”

“ For if you make change of names a sign of things having been named by men, you will thereby surely allow that every name has been imposed upon things by us, since the same appellations of objects have not obtained universally. ”

“ There is so much in a name. To find out what a thing is called is a great help. It is the beginning of knowledge; it is the first step. When we see a new person who interests us, we wish to know his or her name. ”

“ To prevent such confusion and difficulties, the author has taken care to insert each individual under his different appellations, viz., under his family-name, his surname, poetical name, under his title or under the name of the place of his birth, referring at the same time, if he is not to be found under one name, to look under the one referred to. ”

“ Psychological Function of General Names.—A name is commonly defined as a mark or sign by the help of which the idea of a thing may be called up in our own mind or in the mind of another. Signs are either self-explaining, as in the case of a drawing, or an imitative gesture, or conventionally attached to objects as the larger number of linguistic signs or names, the symbols used in music, etc. ”

“ The Magic of Names.—For primitive peoples the name is as much a part of the person as a limb; consequently the magical use of names is in some of its aspects assimilable to the processes dependent on the law of sympathy. In some cases the name must be withheld from any one who is likely to make a wrong use of it, and in some parts of the world people have secret names which are never used. ”

“ To this class belong many surnames which have the form of abstract nouns, e.g. Charity, Verity, Virtue, Vice. Of similar origin are perhaps Bliss, Chance, Luck, and Goodluck; cf. Bonaventure. Love, Luff, occurs generally as a personal name, hence the dim. Lufkins, but it is sometimes a nickname. Lovell, Lovett, more often mean little wolf. ”

“ A concrete name is a name which stands for a thing; an abstract name is a name which stands for an attribute of a thing. Thus John, the sea, this table, are names of things. White, also, is a name of a thing, or rather of things. ”