Naming

“ The naming of children has an intimate connection with the system of mythological agency. Names are usually bestowed by some aged person, most commonly under the supposed guidance of a particular spirit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What shall the little ones take for a personal name?
54. In-shta ́-sha-be, Dark-eyes,
55. The little ones shall take for a name, as they travel the path of life.
56. When, they take this for a personal name,
57. They shall always live to see old age, as they travel the path of life.
9
58. ”

“ And yet, when these babies grow up, their names seem every whit as appropriate as do the names of the romantic puppets. "Obviously," thinks the novelist, "these human beings must 'grow to' their names ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have already dipped a revealing brush into the subject of names. Were the practice of applying names in a wrong and illogical sequence maintained throughout it might indeed raise a dignified smile, but it would not appear contemptible; but what can be urged when upon an occasion one name appears first, upon another occasion last? A dignity is conferred in old age, and it is placed before the family designation borne by an honoured father and a direct line of seventeen revered ancestors. ”

“ That Name, which we teach our little ones to lisp,—that Name, which sanctifies our daily prayers,—that Name, which our beloved ones whispered to us with failing breath as their feet drew near the dark valley, that Name, which yet—oh, strange mystery!—is dearer to our hearts than even theirs—that Name was on the lips of each one of the slaughtered multitude whose blood is crying to heaven—that Name is still on the lips of the suffering remnant that are left. ”

“ CHAPTER VI.
1ENGLISH SURNAMES.
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. To review the sources of a people’s nomenclature is to review that people’s history. When we remember that there is nothing without a name, and that every name that is named, whether it be of a man, or man’s work, or man’s heritage of earth, came not by chance, or accident so called, but was given out of some nation’s spoken language to denote some characteristic that language expressed, we can readily imagine how important is the drift of each—what a record must each contain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What is a noun?"
"A noun is a word used as the name of any object."
"Very well. A noun, then, is a name-word."
"But why is not every word a name-word just the same?" asked Walter.
"Different sorts of words have different uses," said Mrs. Dane. "If I say, 'Walter, come here,' by the word Walter, I name an object or person; and it is therefore a name-word, or noun. Noun means name. By the word come, I tell Walter what to do; and therefore come is a different sort of word from a name-word. ”

“ The names—and each name stands for a conception or idea—are our instruments for handling our problems and solving our dilemmas. Now, when we think of this, we are too apt to forget an important fact, which is that in most human beings the stock of names and concepts is mostly acquired during the years of adolescence and the earliest years of adult life. I probably shocked you a moment ago by saying that most men begin to be old fogies at the age of twenty-five. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The primitive idea connecting a name with the thing or person to which it belongs is that the name is actually a concrete part of the person or object, containing part of his life, just as the hair, nails and all the body are believed to contain part of the life, which is not at first localised in any part of the body nor conceived of as separate from it. ”

“ Examine the construction of the italicized nouns in the following sentences:—
1. Subject nominative. The noun may be used as the subject of a verb; as, Boys play. The subject of a verb is in the nominative case.
2. Predicate nominative. A noun that is used to form a complete predicate, and refers to the same person or thing as the subject, is in the nominative case after the verb; as, John became king. A noun so used is called a predicate noun or predicate nominative. The verbs be, seem, become, appear, look are followed by a predicate nominative. ”

“ After all, however, it is, perhaps, complexion which has occupied for itself the largest niche in our more general nomenclature. Nor is this unnatural. It is 444still that which, in describing people, we seize upon as the best means of recognition. Sobriquets of this kind were so numerous, indeed, that there was no term in the vocabulary of the day which could be used to denote the colour of the dress, the hair, or the face, which did not find itself a place among our surnames. ”

“ E. H. Y. will find the question, surname or sirname, slightly touched upon in my English Surnames (3rd edit., vol. i. p. 13.) , and argued at length in the Literary Gazette for Nov. 1842, in a correspondence originating out of a notice of the first edition of my book. I think the balance of evidence is in favour of surname; that is, a name superadded to the personal or baptismal appellation, which applies with equal propriety to the sobriquets given to monarchs and distinguished men, and to the hereditary designations of people of humble rank. ”

“ The virtue of the name, and the power conferred by a knowledge of it, are features common to the folk-lore of most countries. They take us back to that primitive phase of thought which not only identifies the name with the person or thing it represents, but makes it a separate entity with an existence of its own. ”

“ It is an improvement, but in most cases at the expense of nothing but imitation, the sound and the fashion being the only guides. After all, nomenclature cannot be otherwise than imitative, but the results are most curious and interesting, when it is either the continuation of old hereditary names, like the Algernon of the Howards or the Aubrey of the de Veres, or else the record of some deeply felt event, like the Giustina of Venice, in honour of the battle of Lepanto, or our own Arthur, in memory of the deeds of our great duke. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ... ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The only purpose of a name is that it shall furnish a key to a common understanding; where the BNA name does not furnish such a key to English readers, and where there is a term in established English usage that does serve this purpose and seems unlikely to be supplanted, we have used the latter. ”

“ During the last seven years I have devoted the whole of my spare time to the preparation of a ‘Dictionary of English Surnames.’ But about two years ago it struck me that perhaps a smaller work dealing with the subject in a less formal and more familiar style might not be unacceptable to many, as a kind of rudimentary treatise. In the course of my labours I have come under obligations to several writers and several Societies. To long-departed men, whose works do follow after them, I must give a passing allusion. ”

“ 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. ”