MORE ABOUT NAMES.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20038, 20 September 1930, Page 13

MORE ABOUT NAMES.

(specially wbitten for the press.) [By Cyeano.] P ? n^us, ' on °f "Senor Ernesto osn in the new Argentine Ministry •s one of those things that seem too good to be true. It is like the American announcement that Mr So-and-so would lecture on "William Butler Meats and the Garlic Revival," and tiie English paper's reference to Mr Hotairio" Bottomley. Democracy, or what passes for it in the Argentine, appears to have made a joke against itself, or perhaps' is permitting itselt a sudden burst of candour. Is ''Bosh 1 a misprint '< If not, what is it doing among the "slow old tunes of Spain"*' As a rule there is something sunny and lazy about Spanish names, something that suggests heat and colour and leisure. "Ramon Angel de las Ciuzes y Aliraflores" is one of ihe names that O. Henry delights us with in his Central American stories. "Uoii aenor ei coroiiei Encainauxon itios." "lA>n cJabas Placido." On© might t>e inclined, like Browning, to learn opunish tor the sake of sucn names, but "Bosh"! it is indeed a gitt for ihe world's writers of light verse, it rhymes with "tosh." "Ernesto Bosn'' combines beautifully the two common political qualities of sententiousness and folly. Of course the word "bosh' probably conveys nothing derogatory to the Argentine mind, but could a man with this name reach Parliament and succeed there in a British country P He might live it down, but it would be hard work. A few years ago Poland provided a perfect example of a Minister well-named. The gentleman who framed the taxation there was M. Grabski. What it means in Polish I do not know, but in England a man who wished to advance in , politics would 'have to change it. Putting very queer names aside, does an attractive name mean much to a public man? "Baldwin" certainly suggests something essentially English, something solid and dependable. "Ramsp.y Mac Donald" is as Scottish as you lite, and the unmistakable nature of the brand may have helped to carry him to j>ower I doubt, however, whether in many cases nomenclature seriously helps or hinders a man. Probably appearance and mannerisms are much more important. The carjcaturable statesman is given a publicity far greater than that of a rival who has no physical feature or habit or trick oi speech uoon which the artist . can frsten. There have been the straw in Palmerston's mouth: Gladstone's nose and collar—the particular shape of the latter is said to have been due to a laundry accident; Chamberlain's eyeglass; Baldwin's pine. The ambitious Oswald Mosley would find it easier to capture the imagination of the people if he lent himself to caricature as well as Winston Churchill. t Long names are a nuisance in politics, especially to journalists, but meu make their own contractions. Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman had a mouthful of a name, bnt it was shortened to "C.B. Association may count for much. Sir Prank Benson, the celebrated. producer of Shakespeare in the provinces and trainer of players, owed some of his success ,at the start to his name; i he was thought to be connected with I the Archbishop, of Canterbury, which Lin the eyes of many removed from him ! the stisrma of the stage's disrepute. ' it is ealid that "Lorna Doone" received its first push into popularity from the marriage of the Marquis of Lornt into ' the . Royal Family, it would be interesting to know hour much the two Wini Eton Churchills owe to each -other. , un I the other hand George Nathaniel Curton, Viceroy arid Minister, acquired a quite 'undeserved reputation for motor .speeding, there was a Viscount Curzon who seemed to make quite a hobby of this sort of thing. It Is probable that in the literary world names help Or hinder. "Shaw "and '"Wells" • have the, virtue of brevity and simplicity. Where Would Shaw be tin-day if, his . n . ame ,. E"® Ehenezsr HigginbothamP Arnold Ben ; i nett wisely dropped the John Galsworthv befirs a name as English as his novels, and something of the tang of the shires appropriately ' hnwgn round the name of John Masefiehf Partnerships I am'sure are a handicap. * Edith Somerville and Violet Martin would have appealed to I a large*, public if they had published under one name. I res ®? t , t ' ie .P erßl fj tence with author of "Elizabeth and her German .Garden refuses to put her name to her b(**s ; Vou ask someone if he has read Vera or "The or "Love,, and be says "Who by f" and you have to say "The author of 'Elizabeth and he Sm ««««.'•" -»4 he says, "Oh, yes. Elinor Glvn. " yqu said the Countess yon Arnim or the Countess Russell; he would not understand you. Real life provides names as strange as any evolved from the imagination of the novelist. natres look preposterous enough, wrote M q 3% %!T 255- tftJST tSA* tow afterwards. No impossible " in this c^u through alised recently when, * the main street of a small ca * city 1 observed over-a drfl P er ® S£- .I™* Gotnbed.". JMr ca rtfll l.«»

living persons. So seriously did the literary world regard this judgment, which was in favou' of the plaintitt in his action against a newspaper that had used his name innocently, that some authors have prefaced their novels with a declaration that all the characters are fictitious. Commenting on another case of the kind—a preposterous one in which the plaintiff did not succeed—Mr Squire said that if it had gone the other way novelists in the end would have been driven to call their characters by letters or numbers. "A.B. buried her head in her arms, and wept long and bitterly as she thought of that beautiful day when she and C.D. had sat in bliss under the .blue Mediterranean sky " for unusual naniOß are no guarantee of immunity. "You may work as hard as you like in the regions of the grotesque and the unlikely, but when you have concocted names like Arabel Pickles or Marmaduke Honeyblossom Whoopingnose, the ->hariceo are that from Clapton or Syii; ham or Blackpool or Merthyr Tydvil some Dread -Unknown will start up and ask why his or her name, long known and honoured in the locality, has been thus pilloried." Sir Arthur Pinero actually found this out when he concocted the name "Ebbsmith" and a person of that name rose in the stalls and protested. To get just the right names must sometimes cost novelists a great deal of thought. In the old days writers.used type names freely, and it must have saved them a lot of trouble. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch gives as one of the reasons why men who were young in the 'nineties were impatient of oldnovelists, the use of such names as Lord Frederick Verisopht by Dickens and Mr Quiverful bv Trollope: "this dotestable boil inherited from Ben .Jonson, with his type names of Brain-worm, Well-bred, Sir Epicure Mammon, and, so on." Vet some of the invention of the old novelists was first class and helped to win them readers and remembrance. Thackeray could give as guests of Becky Sharp "the Duchoss Dowagerof Stilton, Due de la Gruyere," etc., but what better names could there be for his particular purposes than Pendennis and Warrington, Becky Sharp and Lord Steynef "Q" says that Steyne is a thing of cardboard beside Disraeli'b Lord Monmouth in "Coningsby" (both characters were drawn from the same. notorious nobleman, to whom, however, England owes the basis of the wonderful Wallace Collection), but Thackeray chose the better name. In our own day we have Mr Galsworthy giving us in the Forsyte: names that seem entirely appropriate. "Forsyte" itself is an inspiration. It is as English as English can be. '' Forsyte" suggests everything that Soame? and his class stand for, though it must be? added that the later Soames is very different from the man who treated" Irene as a piece of property. I have just heard of a discussion in a family as to whether a new dog shall bi called Jolyon, and .Ton for short. "Jolyon" seems to fit "Forsyte" exactly, and that it should be used for the name of a pet in New Zealand, is in- v teresting evidence of the extent of Mr Galsworthy's public and the quality of his appeal. -