Literature requires considerable cultivation before it spreads many names. It gave some in the latter days of Greece, and more after the old hereditary customs of Rome were broken up; then, during the dark ages, its influence was lost, except at Byzantium; and only when the chivalrous romance became fashionable, did a few poetic knights and dames call their children after the heroes of the Round Table, or the paladins of Charlemagne, and then it must have been in defiance of the whole system of patron saints until the convenient plan of double names, first discovered by the Germans and French, accomplished the union of fancy and dedication, or compliment.
The revival of learning in the fifteenth century, however, filled Italy with classical names, some of which spread into France, and a few into Germany; but as a general rule in modern times, France, England, and America have been the countries whose nomenclature has been most affected by literature; France, especially so, the prevalence of different tastes and favourite novels being visible from the fifteenth century downwards, through its Arcadian, its Augustan, its Infidel, its Revolutionary periods; while England, since the Reformation, has slightly partaken of all these tastes in turn, but with her own hereditary fashions and religious influences mingling with them; and America exaggerates every variety in her mixed population.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
HEBREW NOMENCLATURE.
Hebrew, the sacred language, and the medium of all our earliest knowledge of the world and of man, furnishes almost all of the first names known to us, which are in general, verbs, substantives, or adjectives from that tongue, suggested either by inspiration or by some of the natural motives observed in the former chapter.
The minute history of the naming of the twelve patriarchs, furnish the best illustrations of the presaging spirit of early nomenclature.
Reuben, “behold a son,” cries the mother in her first pride; Simeon, “He that heareth,” because He had heard her prayer; Levi, a joining, in the trust that her husband would be joined with her; Judah, praise, in praise of Him who had given these four sons, and Judah, “thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise,” is repeated by Jacob; Dan, a judge, is so called by his adoptive mother because her cause is judged, “and Dan shall judge his people” is his father’s blessing; Naphtali commemorates Leah’s wrestling with her sister; Gad is one of the troop round Leah, “and a troop shall overcome him,” saith Jacob; Asher, is blessed, and Moses cries, “let Asher be blessed;” Issachar, is hire; and Zebulon, a dwelling, because Leah hoped her husband would dwell with her, and his promise from his father is that he shall dwell. Rachel cannot name her long-desired first-born without a craving that God would add to her another son, and thus Joseph means an addition, and when that second child was given, and she felt that it was at the cost of her own life, she mourned over him as Benoni, son of my sorrow; but his father with more hopeful augury called him (probably at his circumcision) Benjamin, son of my right hand.
The earlier names were very simple, such as Leah, weary; Adah, ornament. But about the time of the going into Egypt compound words were employed, family names began to grow traditional, and several of Egyptian etymology were acquired.
The Aramaic became the Jewish vernacular, and so continued after the return from Babylon, nor has it ceased to prevail, under the name of Syriac, among a considerable portion of the natives of the East.
Moreover, the Greek invasion of the East, and the establishment of the Macedonian dynasties of Egypt and Syria, rendered the Grecian the language of foreign relations and of literature, and caused it to be understood by all who pretended to polite education, or meddled with politics and commerce. The Septuagint, or Alexandrian version of the Scriptures, was used in private by the Græcised Jews, and was the form in which their sacred books became known to those of foreign nations who took interest in them.