ABOUT NAMES.

Evening Post, Volume XLVIII, Issue 66, 15 September 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

ABOUT NAMES.

There are anomalies in our language which can with difficulty be accounted for, and especially with regard to surnames. There are such absurdities as Mary Robertson, Mrs. TL&rdman, or Proper/o/w. Before the Christian era the Celtic female names were very pretty, both in Bound and meaning. For instance: — Suilgorum blue-eyed; Lanshuil — full-eyed; Builmalda — meek-eyed ; Suilalum—beau-tiful-eyed ; Conlava — soft-handed, womanly ; Galava — milk-white ; Bosmina — soft palm; Oichova — tender virgin ; compassionate maid ; similar to Ruth — who rules for others ; Coalman — soft hairjd, fine tresses, which is equal to Zillah —shadow made by ringlets; Coolaulin — beautiful hair, similar to Jacinta, Aurclia — goldtressed women ; Malvina — smoothly browed, similar to Talhiran — ironbrowed; Flamina — softly mild, equals Lentula ; Agandica — snow - faced, equals Chione — snow time, winter; Everchomi (Ossian's wife) — the tender, merciful Ever; Eosgrana (Fingal's first wife) — a sunbeam ; Gfaolnandona — the love of men, she after whom men search; Finella — whiteshouldered ; Strinadona — contention, she for whom men strive ; Bridget, strong ; Colleen Bawa — fair maid, equals Britomartis; Kowena — white skirt ; Gowan (daisy) — white flower ; Genevieve — wave-foamy, whiteness of the Bea ; Kathleen (erroneously taken as a form of Catharine) — beau-tiful-eyed. This is the feminine to Kathlin — battle-eyod, a man looking at his foe. There are oddities such as in the case of a woman who had her female infant christened " Magnesia," which she saw on a medicine bottle. It would have been appropriate to have added l< Neuralgia," — and it would have sounded well. Owing to the small choice of female appellation!?, high-flown dames are often at their wits' end to avoid such as are trite, as Margaret, Janet, Jessie, Sarah, Mary &c. Hence the array of Eubye, Violets, Celestinas, Arabellas, Angelinas, Stellas, and a profusion of jingling inanities met with in fashionable circles. Another device of the upper ten is to make family names baptismal, as Wortley Montague, Dormer Stanhope, Bulwer Lytton, ' &o. This is better, as names become

monumental of the once departed but ever dear If the dead were great, their name is inspirational as well as monumental Hood describes the pangs of fashionabilitiea when name-hunting : — "Now, to christon tho infant Kilmnnsegg f For days and days it was quite a plague To hunt the list in tho Lexicon. And scores were tried, like coin, by tho rinff^J Ere names wore found just the proper thujJT' For a minor rich as a Mexican. "Then tho babe was cross* d and bloss'd amain, But instead of tho Kato, or Ann, or Jane Which the humbler female endorses— Instead of one name, ns some people prefix — ■ Kilmansegg wont at tho tail of six, Like a carriage of State with its horso?. ' '