If the surname is common, the Christian name should be peculiar. Almost any prefix is pardonable to “Smith.” John Smith has no individuality left, but Godolphin Smith really reads aristocratically. James Brown is no one, but Sequard Brown and Ignatius Brown are lifted out of the crowd. Some people get out of this difficulty by iterating the name so as to compel respect. Thus, Jones Jones, of Jones’s Hall, has a moral swagger about it that would be sure to carry it through.
It is often a great advantage to have a very odd name, a little difficult to remember at first, but which when once learned bites itself into the memory. For instance, there was Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy; we have to make a hurdle-race over it, but once in the mind it is never forgot.
Remember in giving names that the children when grown up may be in situations where they will have frequently to sign their initials, and do not give names that might in this situation provoke contemptuous remark. For instance, David Oliver Green,—the initials make “dog;” Clara Ann Thompson,—the initials spell “cat.” Neither should a name be given whose initial taken in conjunction with the surname suggests a foolish idea, as Mr. P. Cox, or Mrs. T. Potts.
If the child is a boy, it may be equally uncomfortable for him to have a long string of names. Suppose that in adult life he be comes a merchant or banker, with plenty of business to do, then he will not be well pleased to write “George Henry Talbot Robinson” two or three hundred times a day.
It is not a bad plan to give girls only one baptismal name, so that if they marry they can retain their maiden surname: as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Harriet Beecher Stowe. This is the practice among the Society of Friends, and is worthy of more general adoption, for we should then know at 209 once on seeing the name of a lady whether she was married, and if so, what her family name was. In Geneva and many provinces of France the maiden family name of the wife is added to the surname of the husband; thus, if a Marie Perrot married Adolphe Lauve, they would after marriage write their names respectively, Adolphe Perrot-Lauve and Marie Perrot-Lauve. The custom serves to distinguish the bachelor from the married man, and is worthy of imitation; for if Vanity unites in the same escutcheon the arms of husband and wife, ought not Affection to blend their names?
Generally the modern “ie,” which is appended to all names that will admit of it, renders them senseless and insipid. Where is the improvement in transforming the womanly loveliness of Mary into Mollie? Imagine a Queen Mollie, or Mollie Queen of Scots! There is something like sacrilege in such a transformation. Take Margaret, and mutilate the pearl-like name into Maggie, and its purity like a halo vanishes, and we have a very commonplace idea in its stead. If we must have diminutives, commend us 210 to the old style. Polly, Kitty, Letty, Dolly, were names with some sense and work in them, and which we pronounce like articulate sounds.
There is no greater injustice than the infliction of a whimsical or unworld-like name on helpless infancy; for, as it is aptly said, “How many are there who might have done exceedingly well in the world had not their characters and spirits been totally Nicodemused into nothing!”
It is certainly a grave question if in the matter of Christian names our regard for the dead past should blind our eyes to the future comfort and success of our children. Why have we so many George Washingtons? The name is a great burden for any boy. He will always feel it. Inferiority to his namesake is inevitable. Besides, this promiscuous use of great names degrades them; it is not a pleasant thing to see a George Washington or a Benjamin Franklin in the police news for petty larceny.
For the most part Old Testament names are defective in euphony, and very inharmonious with English family names. The 211 female names are still less musical. Nothing can reconcile us to Naomi Brett, Hephzibah Dickenson, or Dinah Winter. And to prove that the unpleasant effect produced by such combinations does not result from the surnames selected, let us substitute appellations unexceptionable, and the result will be even worse,—Naomi Pelham, Hephzibah Howard, Dinah Neville! A Hebrew Christian name requires, in most cases, a Hebrew surname.