WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Lyttelton Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1109, 27 June 1863, Page 3

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

» What's in a name ? " ,1 uliet had of course her oWJ , motives for not attaching much importance to jt but when a name is a pure matter of choice, there is certainly no valiil reason why it should not be made to please the ear and suit the purpose. There is a sort of aesthetic agitation in New South Wales just now to effect the alteration of the colony's name, and not merely for the sake of euphony, but, as it is considered, of expediency also. " New South Wales " was, at best, a roundabout and exceedingly unmeaning appellation—one of those names, in fact, which navigators of a careless fancy or unfertile invention are wont to bestow "at random " on their discoveries. But though unmeaning enough originally, it appears that it is at present accepted in some quarters as having a significance, and that not a very agreeable one, for the emigration agents in England declared that they found it an impediment to their labors among the working classes, from the associations the name presented, originated when the colony was a penal settlement. They accordingly advised that a new designation should be adopted. From a similar motive, Tasmania discarded her old title. On different grounds, and as merely matter of taste, the name of our own country has twice undergone change, and we see that South Australia likewise shows herself anxious to be freshly baptized— " South Australia" being hardly expressive of boundaries which have been pushed long since into the interior of the continent, and which a late arrangement in Downing street has extended northward, for a period at any rate, over the whole of Stuart's discoveries. There is in the current era an unusual demand for geographical names, so many new settlements are being planted, and so many older ones which have risen in importance have so much occasion to be dissatisfied with the christening they hastily received from the hardy sailors and bold explorers who first lit upon their territory. The requirement is, or ought to be, for appellations at once simple, appropriate, and well-sounding; but, like many other requirements, the supply hardly equals the demand. Indeed, there appears to be a bareness of invention in this line. New Zealand, for instance, has long been dissatisfied at remaining " New Zealand," an epithet savouring rather of connexion with the Hague than with Westminster; and yet the only suggestions we have heard of by way of improvement are such terms as " Zealandia," "Austral Britain," or "South Britain;" the first pedantic and of foreign import still, and the two last compound terms, and therefore unhandy, besides being wanting in local distinctiveness. And if the New Zealand islands, as a whole, have no satisfactory designation, separately they are still worse off; they have no regular names at all, notwithstanding their fast - increasing import-

ance. " New Ulster," " New Munster," and " New Leinster," the first titles placed on the maps, were speedily discarded as inexpressive and clumsy. The Maori " Eaheinomauwe," and " Tavai Poenammoo" were " jaw-breakers" quite impracticable for popular colonial use, and thus the islands are only locally known as the north, middle, and south—nay, from the comparative insignificance of the southernmost, the middle is as generally called the South Island. Nor is this lack of happy invention limited to our quarter of the world. " The United States of North America" is a phrase so long-winded that they are usually spoken of by the name of the continent of which they only form a portion; and henceforward there are Confederate States as well as United States in need of some terser device of nomenclature. Nor are the wits of colonists or the descendants of colonists less at fault in this respect than those of the Colonial Office. " British Columbia" is more suited for the pen than the tongue, for holiday than everyday use. In either way, it is quite ineloquent as lately applied. It is the whole of British America, not simply the Pacific seaboard, which would be naturally understood by the termOur early navigators got over such perpetual demands on their imagination, by calling places after those at home; and the Spaniards, who preceded them in the search for new lands, had recourse, in similar extremity, to the ecclesiastical calendar and list of saints. In modern days, the practice is becoming more general of adopting native names, and of falling back on them as substitutes for those less simple and euphonious which have been imported Tlius, Canada is an improvement on New France, and Mexico on New Spain. Toronto is racier of the soil, and of better sound, than Kingston, and Taranaki than New Plymouth. If the pen of the historian or novelist ought to he dipped in the colour of the time of which he treats, the name of a locality should have a local flavour. There is hardly an aboriginal language on the face of the earth, however rude or utterly savage, in which the native names are not, as a rule, the best for local geography —the best, because the most melodious, even when Ave don't understand them; and the best, because the most expressive, when we do. We find it so, and it is intelligible that it should be, for it is civilization which wears out our inventiveness in this line. We don't rival, and we cannot approach in rivalry, the simple and eloquent nomenclature of our own barbaric ancestors. The child of nature distinguishes the places about him by phrases indicative of the impression produced on his mind, untouched by extrinsic associations. If the name does not indicate the striking effect and characteristic features, it will not become general, and if it is not terse and facile it will equally fail to last. Hence the pleasing simplicity, and, to the linguist, the apt meaning, remarkable almost everywhere, of original local names. But the civilised stranger is influenced .by other ideas as well as those of the scene and moment, even if he is influenced by the latter at all. He baptizes the country or headland or river by the appellation of his native land or town, or of his patron or his saiut, and so his invention is usually inappropriate, sometimes ridiculous, often vulgar and awkward, and has no title to stand beside the invention of the savage, which is a whole-souled tribute, if we may use the mythological figure, to the local deity. The Americans have latterly got into the more tasteful and intelligent practice of giving at least their states designations borrowed from the speech of the Indians. And lowa, Alabama, Illinois, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Michigan, and Ohio are certainly more musical than the English Pennsylvania, the Spanish Florida, and the French Louisiana, though these are unquestionably among the most favorable specimens of our European contrivance; for, granting that they have

a disagreeable affectation of Latinity, they are, nevertheless, not compound and wholly inexpressive, like, for instance, New Jersey, Rhode Island, or N»w Granada. On the other hand, if we turn to

the map for their towns, the Americans exhibit a still grotesquer tendency than Australians. Among our manifold freaks of fancy we are exempt from Troy, Memphis, or Syracuse. Our map is piebald enough, indeed—a curious jumble of polyglot phrases, and of phrases which would puzzle a scholar in any tongue at all, either living or dead. The circumstance may bo characteristic, among other things, of the component variety of our population; but it can hardly be regarded as drama tic, in any other sense. The confusion is intelligible while a colony is in the chaos of formation, but for the future there ought to be some settled rule in the matter; and it cannot be doubted that, under any fixed arrangement, native names, wherever attainable, should have the preference. The aboriginal title of a neighboring river, hill, or tribe, can be seldom wanting, and, where wanting, some term, combining simplicity with local expressiveness, should be made to supply the want. But on this continent, from the peculiarly primitive condition of the aborigines, living in small tribes, without any system of coalition, they have furnished us with no names for any very extensive tracts of territoi'y. New South Wales, the Riverine province, and the Carpentarian colony, when it arises, will probably act independently 011 help from this source; and so it would be well if they would exert their ingenuity, and take care not to discredit their taste in the selection.—Argus,