WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Otago Witness, Issue 956, 16 May 1889, Page 33

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

" Make yourself a {name 1" When a man has done that his fortune is practically made. Whatever profession or business he may enter, his initial difficulty is to become known, to make a name. In literature especially, an uncommon or a striking name is a decided advantage to an author.

The laureate is so fully alive to the charms of his patronymic that he declined, some 10 years ago, the offer of certain estates in Lincolnshire, rather than, take the commonplace name of Turner. Tennyson's elder brother, Charles, inherited a hall and some farms, and, for the sake of the large revenue which they yielded, he entirely dropped his own name, aud took that of Turner, which stands on the title-page of his book of sonnets. He died and left no issue, and as neither the laureate nor his son would accept the condition which enforces the entire suppression of the name of Tennyson, the property passed to other hands. Some curious stories could be told by lawyers concerning names and their fortunes. Very few men care to bear ugly names , but, if they happened to be blessed or cursed with them, they usually endeavour to console themselves with the delusion that the unpleasant patronymic is a mark of distinction. An exception to this rule is recorded by the editor ot a Yorkshire newspaper.

" I had a dear friend," he writes, " who rejoiced in a very singular alliterative name, which I may paraphrase freely as ' Lappington Log.' He used to boast that his family were the only Logs in' England, and that 'Lappington Log' was a conjunction of title which had never been known before in the world's history. One day my friend, who was one of the kindest and worthiest of mortals, rushed into my chambers in a state of breathless excitement. In his hand he brandished a copy of a penny dreadful of the worst type, which he flung down with emphasis upon my table. " ' Read that 1' he said, • read that, and tell me what you think of such abominable conduct 1' and he pointed, to a particular place on the front page. I looked to the place indicated, and there I read these words :— " ' Go it ! Lappington Log, Esquire.' And on looking further I found that my friend's name had beenappropriated by the writer of a sensational tale, and applied to the villain of the story. He threatened the novelist with an action for libel. That worthy person, however, blandly offered to settle the matter ty killing his Mr Lappington Log in the next number. And he did so, to the intense relief of ray friend." There is said to be a lawyer in New York Darned Goggles. Had Dickens known of the name he would certainly have immortalised & By the way, one of Dickens' sons is a barrister ; and last summer a curious coincidence took place at Bath, where Mr Dickens called a Mr Pickwick as a witness in court, and great interest was naturally aroused there by the circumstance. One of the difficulties of a novelist is to find suitable names for his characters. The Parisian novelists often consult the directory for striking or unusual names. This practice is, however, fraught with danger, as was Mustrated in the Duverdy-Zola trial which took place a few years ago. , The apostle of Naturalism had introduced a character named Duverdy, who was described as a "lawyer of the Court of Appeal of Paris," and whose portrait was unflattering in the extreme.

As it was, M. Duverdy, " lawyer of the Court of Appeal of Paris," demanded the removal of his name from Zola's production. *• Zola treated this modest request with lofty scorn, asserting his full right to select a &y names that suited his purposes, and to choose them from the very locality of which he was writing. At the same time he was filing to acknowledge that he had no intenllon of caricaturing M. Duverdy, of whose °xistence he was previously unaware. The lawyer was not prepared to accept l ™B as a sufficient reason for the appearance °i his name in the unsavoury pages of the Jpostle of Naturalism, and the law sustained ™» right to have his patronymic protected. the publisher, ordered to

leave the name out of the future chapters under " a penalty of ££ ' for each day's, delay. ,

This judgment zeally declares that every person whose name is put into a novel has the right to demand its omission. This right, if exercised -universally, would certainly be inconvenient. Marryat once by chance used for a somewhat disagreeable character the name of a real person, whose letter of complaint he gave when reprinting the novel. It would be difficult to devise fresh names, since even some of the oddest patronymics in the pages of Dickens have proved to belong to actual pei sons.' One French writer, driven to desperation) suggests that the novelist of the future will have to say Count-; — de §, Madame J f, Baron / de=, and bo forth. But so far, the suggestion does not seem to have been adopted by any novelist of repute, though every writer certainly runs a risk of offending persons whose names are introduced into his novel. Not long since a Boston firm of publishers had claims amounting to £800 from aggrieved persons. The novelist had not only introduced real persons in the most Uncomplimentary fashion, but had given their full names and addresses. tt is a pity to find the possessor, of a great name dragging it in the mire, instead of maintaining its prestige, but there, seems no limit to the curious anomalies which the combinations of proper names present, Kecently, Walter Scott was charged at Rotherham with deserting his wife and family ; Christopher Wren, at London, with drunkenness and disorderly conduct; John Milton with playing the three-card trick, and John Bunyan with housebreaking.

Under the title of " A Eadical Applicant for School Fees," a Manchester paper published a report of an application made by a bookkeeper who had been out of work 18 months, and whose five boys bore the following Christian names — Ernest Jones, John Bright, Richard Cobden, William Ewart Gladstone, and Dan O'Connell. On being asked whether he could not manage to make a little money out of the elections then being held, the father declared that he could not conscientiously receive any money for political work of that kind. The fees were granted to him. The importance of a man's name to himself is shown by the advertisements which frequently appear in the newspapers announcing that Mr Fog or Mr Pig has" taken legal steps to enable him to change his name. i , One of the most notable cases of this kind was that of Mr Ashmead Bartlett, who married the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and assumed, by r,oyal license, the curious compound name of Burdett-Coutts-Bartlett-Coutls. The new name did not seem to satisfy his ambition, for he again changed it to William Lehman Ashmead-Bartlett Burdett-Coutts.

The writer of this article bears a name which has four variatons in spelling. His way of spelling the word is exactly the same as that of a great novelist, who died a few years ago, and whose nephew thus wrote : 11 1 asked if you were one of us, because lam acquainted with the history of every branch of our family since Henry VIII, except two or three names. But you clearly are not a pedigree hunter." Neither was Matthew Arnold. A certain professor of music at Enniskillen named " Matthew Arnold," had written to his namesake at Cobham to inquire whether, besides their two distinguished selves, he knew of any third person with the same conjunction of Christian and surname. He at once received the following answer : —

"My Dear Sir, — The only person I ever heard of who bore our Christian and surname conjoined was a young butcher who was tried for sheepstealing at Devizes, The calendar, with the name and charge in it, was sent to me by one of the barristers on circuit.— Truly yours, Matthew Arnold .''