Chapter 1

"'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;
'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas."

_Taming of the Shrew._

There is nothing in which American Liberty, not always as much
restrained as it might be, has manifested a more decided tendency to run
riot, than in the use of names. As for Christian names, the Heathen
Mythology, the Bible, Ancient History, and all the classics, have long
since been exhausted, and the organ of invention has been at work with
an exuberance of imagination that is really wonderful for such a
matter-of-fact people. Whence all the strange sounds have been derived
which have thus been pressed into the service of this human
nomenclature, it would puzzle the most ingenious philologist to say. The
days of the Kates, and Dollys, and Pattys, and Bettys, have passed away,
and in their stead we hear of Lowinys, and Orchistrys, Philenys,
Alminys, Cytherys, Sarahlettys, Amindys, Marindys, &c. &c. &c. All these
last appellations terminate properly with an a, but this unfortunate
vowel, when a final letter, being popularly pronounced like y, we have
adapted our spelling to the sound, which produces a complete bathos to
all these flights in taste.

The hero of this narrative was born fully sixty years since, and happily
before the rage for modern appellations, though he just escaped being
named after another system which we cannot say we altogether admire;
that of using a family, for a christian name. This business of names is
a sort of science in itself and we do believe that it is less
understood and less attended to in this country than in almost all
others. When a Spaniard writes his name as Juan de Castro y[1] Muños, we
know that his father belonged to the family of Castro and his mother to
that of Muños. The French, and Italian, and Russian woman, &c., writes
on her card Madame this or that, _born_ so and so; all which tells the
whole history of her individuality Many French women, in signing their
names, prefix those of their own family to those of their husbands, a
sensible and simple usage that we are glad to see is beginning to obtain
among ourselves. The records on tomb-stones, too, might be made much
more clear and useful than they now are, by stating distinctly who the
party was, on both sides of the house, or by father and mother; and each
married woman ought to be commemorated in some such fashion as this:
"Here lies Jane Smith, wife of John Jones," &c., or, "Jane, daughter of
Thomas Smith and wife of John Jones." We believe that, in some
countries, a woman's name is not properly considered to be changed by
marriage, but she becomes a Mrs. only in connection with the name of her
husband. Thus Jane Smith