WHAT'S IN A NAME

New Zealand Tablet, 12 August 1915, Page 51

WHAT'S IN A NAME

I "CHANGE'S IN 'THE PAST AND PRESENT. '. - ■ Many Germans--resident in Great Britain. had ' Anglicised ' their Teutonic names long before war between the nations was seriously anticipated (says a writer in the Belfast Irish News). Nearly twenty years ago, for example, a particularly vicious Unionist M.P. was known as Mr. Louis Sinclair. The worthy gentleman had quietly adopted the Scottish name; his father was known as Schleisinger. Another Tory called Mr. Ellis ' Barker still writes letters to the newspapers. His original name was something as German as the Spree. Mr. Rosenbaum, yet another distinguished ornament of Unionism—for months the bi;ains-carrier and speech-writer-in-general of the Party—has not been heard of latterly. Perhaps he has changed his name; perhaps he has returned to Germany. I- find a list of recent alterations prepared by a notorious antiGerman 'crusader'; and some of the transmogrifications are interesting, though etymologically illogical: We give a few examples, the present name in each case being in parenthesis:— (Arbour), Aufliolz (Attwood), Schwartz (Barnes), Goetze (Bentley), Jacob (Beresford), Berliner (Berton), Sehwarz (Black), Schneider (Congreve), Fritze (Cooper), Dusseldorf (Crump), Zerffi (Douglas), Schneider (Forestier), Goldman (Glover), Esch (Greenwood), Grunbaum (Greenwood), Krailsheimer (Kerr), Schmidt (Martin), Kuhlniaim (Richardson), Zahringer (King), Schloss (Stewart), Breuninger (Stevens). No German chose a distinctively Irish name; and it may be noted that several persons who bore different patronymics happened upon the same English name when casting about for a choice. As a rule, people change their names for some good reason. Mr. Walter Long has a" brother who was baptised as ' Long,' but who is now Colonel ' Challoner.' Fortunes are often left to folks on the condition that they adopt the ' style and title ' of the testators. When the Germans in Great Britain transformed themselves into nominal Britons they were merely following an example set by many bearers of ancient Irish names in accordance with the provisions of an Act of Parliament which decreed that all Irishmen living in the Counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth, and Kildare (' the Pale ') should dress like the Englishmen of the period, discard their ' coulins,' and take English surnames. These names were generously suggested by the legislators the Irish were told to turn themselves into Suttons, Trims, Corks, Kinsales, or Chesters, after the names of towns, or else to become Greens, Browns, Blacks, Whites, Carpenters, Cooks, or Smiths : and many of them did it. At the date mentioned, O'Shanaghans called themselves Fox,' MacGowans and MacSpillanes became 'Smith,' and McTntyres proclaimed themselves 'Carpenters.' During later 'days there wore quite a large number of timorous and unworthy Irishmen who abandoned their ancient hereditary surnames. I give a few instances, the Anglicised name being in parenthesis.: —O'Beirne (Byron), O'Creighan (Creighton), O'Brolloghan (Bradley), O'Connor (Conyers), o'Hurley (Harley), O'Shauyhnessy (Sandys'), Mac Shane (Johnson), Mac Owen (Owen), MacGuigan (Goodwin), MacCarthy (Carty, or Carte), MacFirbis (Forbes). On the other hand, many of the old English and Anglo-Norman families settled in this country became 'more Irish than the" Irish themselves' in every respect, and adopted Gaelic surnames. Examples are— Mac William (or Mac Williams), Mac Gibbon, Mac David (probably Welsh), Mac Costello, and Mac Adam. An old Latin rhyme runs, in the familiar translation: By 'Mac' and c O ' you'll surely know True Irishmen, they say But if they lack both ' O*' and 'Mac,' No Irishmen are ' they. The rule does not hold good' by any means—principally for the reasons set forth above. Many of

the very greatest and noblest of Irishmen have not only been Fitzgeralds and Burkes of the older "' invasion,' McCrackens, Monroes, : Orrs, and Hopes" of ' Ulster Plantation' origin, and Tones, Slieares, Emmets, and Parnells of a later 'migration/but'the sons or grandsons of quite recent settlers. Though Thomas Davis's mother was a descendant of the O'Sullivans of; Beara, his father was a Welsh ■' officer of the British' Army. In our days there is no general golden rule by which nationality and surname can be identified amongst people who speak English. O'Neills and O'Donnells are Irish—often despite themselves. The second last Duke of Argyll vehemently denied the right of Mr. John Redmond and Mr. John Dillon, as the descendants of mere Anglo-Normans dating only from the eleventh*or twelfth century, to speak for the historic Irish race who sent the ancestors of the MacGalium Mor to the vicinity of Campbeltown seven hundred years previously. But even the stoutest and proudest ' O's' and 'Macs' on this side of the Sea of Movie did not take the venerable gentleman seriously. There are bearers of German names who should not be hunted or persecuted because they hold to that heritage from their fathers. Many of them are good Irishmen: South Africa, the organ of the Union in England, holds strongly that there- are thousands of good Imperial Britons bearing German names in the Federation ruled by General Botha's Government. South Africa writes: ' 'There are men of German extraction moving about among us in England and throughout South Africa who arc as loyal subjects of the King as any of us. Yes, and far more patriotic than thousands, of . the cowardly slackers who expect the flower of British manhood to go on dying to defend their recreant hides. Germans have emigrated to British South, Africa for many years just as Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Irishmen have done, and they have been welcomed, and become absorbed in the great loyal Commonwealth of South Africa. ... It is because we know that many men with German names are falling for England at the front that we return to a subject we have touched on before. There are not a few men connected with South African finance, industry, and commerce who have what can only now be called the misfortune to bear German names. They feel as keenly the iniquities of the country to whom their ancestors owed allegiance as can any Britisher, and they are as abhorrent of Germany's methods of conducting the war as any Englishman. They prefer to retain their names, and we sympathise with them in doing this, as personally they have done nothing to tarnish them, and pride of untainted ancestry may be as honorable in a German as in an Englishman.' A short year ago this proposition would not have been disputed in England. Those were the days when the Kaiser was ' a very gallant gentleman ' in Lord Northcliffe's published opinion, and when Teutonic gentlemen bearing names most guttural were honored guests at familiar local centres and favored observers at U.V.F. parades. Ownership of a surname reeking of the Rhine or Weser is no longer a passport to Such Hospitality and Favor. But the anti-German feeling may be carried too far. South Africa states ' a case in point.' One of the many South Africans who came to England at his own expense was an officer bearing a German name who had fought on the British side during the Boer war ; and he was a splendid linguist: lie offered his services at the War Office at the outbreak of the war. He sent in his card, and when shown into a room a bullying officer, taking no time to study the position, roared out: 'Get out; we want none of your sort here.' It was. a horrible insult : but the young man bore it bravely, and endeavored to explain matters ; but he was practically rushed out of the place. He was a better Britisher than the bully who browbeat him. Though married, he enlisted as a Tommv, and was soon at the front. This week he was killed fighting for England; and there is mourning in a well-known South African family.