3 Congressional Record, July 2, 1946, p. 8295.
4 This is from the Pittsburgh court records, and I am indebted for it to Mr. Charles C. Arensberg.
5 See AL4, pp. 485–86.
6 I take most of these from The Magyar in America, by D. A. Souders; New York, 1922. See also AL4, p. 496.
7 For Rumanian names see AL4, p. 494.
1 The Syrian author and painter, Kahlil Gibran (d. 1931) was the author of a mystical book, The Prophet (written in English) that has had large sales for years.
2 I take these examples from Arabic-Speaking Americans, by H. I. Katibah and Farhat Ziadeh; New York, 1946.
3 Mr. Saroyan tells me that family tradition makes the original form of the name Sarou Khan, meaning blond lord, but the present form has been in use for generations.
4 Not all Armenian surnames end in -ian or -yan. In proof hereto Mr. Saroyan offers Ardzeooni, Chituni, Rushdooni. Totoventz and Charentz.
5 Westbrook Pegler’s column, Nov. 13, 1946.
6 I am indebted here to Mr. Richard Badlian, of Boston; private communication, Sept. 28, 1936. Relatively few actual Turks have immigrated to America: the persons of Turkish birth shown by the census returns are mainly Armenians, Greeks or Jews. It was not until 1924 that Mustafa Kemal decreed that all Turks should have surnames, and not until 1934 that the Ankara National Assembly implemented this decree with legislation imposing a fine of $45 for non-compliance after one year. At that time, according to a United Press dispatch from Istanbul, July 21, no more than two or three hundred Turkish families already had surnames; the rest were content with given names alone. Kemal himself adopted the name of Atatürk.
1 Gypsy Fires in America, by Irving Brown; New York, 1924, p. 20.
2 The Gypsies, by Charles G. Leland; fourth edition; Boston, 1886, pp. 304–07.
3 Chinatown Inside Out, by Leong Gor Lum; New York, 1936, p. 55.
4 Personal Names in Hawaii, by John E. Reinecke, American Speech, Dec., 1940, p. 347.
1 Inside Asia, by John Gunther; New York, 1939, p. 158. Other examples are Oong, Wong and Wen, Chang and Jong, Feng and Fung.
2 Dong Kingman, the San Francisco water-colorist, is commonly called Kingman, but his surname is actually Dong. The Kingman, which is his given-name, represents two Chinese words – king, meaning scenery, and man, meaning literature or grammar. He was born in California in 1911 but was taken to China at the age of five, and remained there until 1929. I am indebted here to Mr. Dong himself; private communication, Oct. 16, 1942. According to Gunther, just cited, Chiang Kai-shek is called Mr. Chiang by his party followers, with Lao (old) Chiang as an affectionate diminutive. His wife calls him Kai.
3 Reinecke, lately cited, p. 348.
4 According to Arthur H. Smith, in Village Life in China; New York, 1899, p. 253, Chinese at home who are adopted into a family bearing a different surname often take that surname. But adoption is rare among Chinese immigrants. See also Reinecke’s Additional Notes on Personal Names in Hawaii, American Speech, Feb., 1943, pp. 69–70.
5 A scheme of transliteration devised by James C. Hepburn (1815–1911), ar American medical missionary who made the first translation of the Bible into Japanese. His Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary; Tokyo, 1867, remained a standard work for many years.
1 Lafcadio Hearn’s children by his Japanese wife adopted Japanese names. His second son, known as Iwao Inagaki, became a teacher of English. The Japanese John Smith, according to the Associated Press correspondent in Tokyo, writing on Oct. 2, 1938, is Taro Sazuki, but according to Ray Cromley, correspondent of the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 20, 1946, p. 1, he is Taro Tanaka.
2 I take these from a petition submitted to Congress in 1946 (Congressional Record, July 19, p. A4506) by the Oglala Sioux of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Not a few of the surnames appended to this petition were non-English, e.g., Cassidy, Shangreau, Condelario, Dubray, Lamont, Bissonette, Colhoff and Romero.
3 Congressional Record, April 2, 1946, pp. A1953–54.
4 Carlisle (Pa.), 1914. The school was housed in buildings belonging to the War Department. They were repossessed in 1918 for use as a hospital and rehabilitation center, and the school shut down. Founded in 1879, it never realized its objectives, and has not been revived. Its male students made something of a splash in athletics, especially football and running, but none of its graduates ever attained to any genuine distinction.
5 Nov., p. 716.
1 Eastman, himself the son of a full-blooded Santee-Sioux and a half-bred Sioux woman, was born in 1858. He became a homeopathic doctor and held various posts in the Indian Service. The later years of his life were spent in delivering lectures and writing books.
2 I am indebted here and for part of what follows to Indian Personal Names From the Nebraska and Dakota Regions, by Margaret Cannell, American Speech, Oct., 1935, pp. 184–87.
1 Mr. Willard W. Beatty, director of education of the Office of Indian Affairs, tells me that sometimes an Indian word that was merely descriptive was mistaken for a surname and applied to an Indian without change. Thus many Navahos came to be called Yazzi, which means little, or Begay, which means son. Very often the same designation was translated differently by different government agents. Thus the name which appears as Stand-for-them on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota is rendered Defender on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota.
2 On July 17, 1937, the United Press correspondent at Watonga (Okla.) reported the marriage of Emma Standing Elk, described as “a pretty 18-year-old Montana Cheyenne princess,” to Horace Howling Water. Among the spectators at the ringside were Jane Walking Coyote, Louise Long Bear, Mollie White Bird, Eva Old Crow, Hugh Yellow Man, Rose Shoulder Blade and James Night Walker. I am indebted here to Dr. Claude M. Simpson, Jr., of the University of Wisconsin. Mr. Bruce Nelson, of Bismarck, N. D., reports finding a Montgomery Ward Two Bellies in Montana; private communication, Jan. 4, 1946.
3 American Indian Tribal Names, by Maurice G. Smith, American Speech, Feb., 1930, pp. 114–17.
4 Indian Words, Personal Names and Place-Names in New Jersey, American Anthropologist, Jan.-March, 1902, pp. 183 ff.
5 Notes on the Kekchi Language, by Robert Burkitt, American Anthropologist, July-Sept., 1902, pp. 441 ff.
6 The Family Names of American Negroes, American Speech, Oct., 1939, pp. 163–74, and How We Got Our Surnames, the same, Oct., 1938, pp. 48–53.
7 Names of American Negro Slaves, in Studies in the Science of Society Presented to Albert Galloway Keller; New Haven, 1937, pp. 471–94.
8 Dr. Turner’s studies are still unfinished, but I have had access to them through his courtesy. They are summarized in The Myth of the Negro Past, by Melville J. Herskovits; New York, 1941.
1 The Amsterdam News reported on Feb. 1, 1944, p. 2-A, that a Negro Coast Guardsman named George Jack Goldstein was visiting in Harlem. He was born in New York City.
2 In a letter from Francis Scott Key to Benjamin Tappan, dated Washington, Oct., 1838, and published in Notes on the United States of America During a Phrenological Visit in 1838–39-40, by George Combs; Philadelphia, 1841, Vol. II, p. 361, there is mention of “a gentleman in Maryland, upwards of thirty years ago, who emancipated by his will between two and three hundred Negroes,” and the statement is made that “they all took (as they were required to do) his name.” There was no such requirement in the Maryland law, but the testator may have imposed it upon his beneficiaries.
3 Booker T. Washington says in Up From Slavery; New York, 1900, pp. 34–35, that his slave mother called him Booker Taliaferro, but that he grew up knowing only that he was Booker. When he went to school and discovered that surnames were necessary he added Washington. Later, informed of the Taliaferro, he made it his middle name and reduced it to its initial. He was born c. 1858–59. Of his father he says: “I have heard reports that he was a white man on a nearby plantation.”
4 Barker, lately cited, p. 168.
1 I am indebted here to Dr. J. D. Bowles, acting
dean of the Houston College for Negroes, Houston, Texas; private communication, May 10, 1940.
2 The Rev. Ben Hamilton, formerly in the Liberian consular service and now a missionary in French Equatorial Africa, tells me that many of the civilized natives of Liberia adopt Christian given-names but preserve their tribal surnames, e.g., Isaac Twe and Robert Okai. Others preserve their full tribal names, e.g., Abayomi Karnge (justice of the Liberian Supreme Court) and Momulu Massaquoi (formerly consul-general at Hamburg). Sometimes, when American surnames are adopted, native names are retained as middle names, e.g., Nathaniel H. Sie Brownell (professor of mathematics at Liberia College), or the new names are joined to the old ones by hyphens, e.g., T. E. Kla-Williams (editor of the Liberian Patriot). Descendants in the male line of American Negro settlers retain, of course, their family names. J. S. Smith reported in the Pylon, April, 1939, that the natives of other parts of West Africa sometimes translate their original names into English, e.g., Fineboy, Alligator, Strongface and Cookey. The followers of Father Divine in New York, both blacks and whites, abandon their lawful names on conversion, and adopt new names which indicate their semi-celestial status, e.g., Glorious Illumination, Crystal Star, Flying Angel, Quiet Love and Daniel Conqueror. I am indebted here to The Psychology of Social Movements, by Hadley Cantril; New York, 1941, p. 128, and to Roman Influence, Converted Catholic, Nov., 1941, p. 240.
3 This book was made up in part of selections from his Britannia, published in Latin in 1586 but not translated into English until 1610.
1 I am indebted for this one to Dr. C. C. Branson, of Brown University.
2 Christian Girl, who began as a mail carrier and ended as a millionaire manufacturer of automobile springs, died at Cleveland, O., June 10, 1946. I am indebted here to Mr. Alexander Kadison.
3 Truly Hatchett is a real estate broker in Baltimore.
4 Reported from Newark, N. J., by Mr. Pierre A. Banker, of New York.
5 The surname of a French-Canadian family living in Rockland, Ont. Contributed by Dr. Douglas Leechman, who says that it is pronounced Louis Seize.
6 Boulder (Colo.) Daily Camera, July 12, 1946. I am indebted here to Mr. W. M. Spackman, of Boulder.
1 Oklahoma City Oklahoman, Jan. 8, 1940.
2 Sir Cloudsley Shovel (1650–1707) was a British naval hero.
3 Reported from Brooklyn by Mr. Robert H. Quinn, of that great city.
4 Probably an Americanized form of Ger. Spritzwasser.
5 Berkshire Evening Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass.), July 6, 1937.
6 Found in Brooklyn by Mr. James Cowden Meyers, of New York.
7 New London (Conn.) Day, Oct. 21, 1941.
8 Fountain Inn (N.C.) Tribune of unknown date.
9 Many of these names come from the collectanea of the late John W. Thomson, of Pittsfield, Mass., kindly put at my disposal by Mr. Robert G. Newman, librarian of the Pittsfield Public Library. For others I am indebted to Miss D. Lorraine Yerkes, of Chicago; Mr. E .P. Rochester, of San Antonio, Tex.; Mr. Paul St. Gaudens, of Barnard, Vt.; and Queer Names, by Howard F. Barker, American Speech, Dec., 1930, pp. 101–09.
10 She Could Answer, How Old is Ann?, by Katherine Scarborough, Baltimore Sun, April 18, 1943.
11 I take the last from Surnames in the Blue Ridge of Virginia, by Miriam Sizer, American Speech, Dec., 1937, p. 269. Miss Sizer says that Fat is all that remains of Lafayette, popular as a given-name a century ago and eventually adopted as a surname. It was pronounced Lay-fat. “The not understood and hence unimportant Lay,” she explains, “was naturally thrown to the discard, but the good old name of Fat was retained, not for convenience alone, but because it embodies a mountain ideal of physical beauty.”
1 English for counterfeiter.
2 Uncommon Names, by G. H. Brierley, London Morning Post, Jan. 20, 1936.
3 The last twenty-one come from The Romance of Names, by Ernest Weekley; London, 1914.
4 The last three are from The Personal Names of the Isle of Man, by J. J. Kneen; Oxford, 1937.
5 The Trampleasures by Jane Gillette Trampleasure, Time and Tide, June 20, 1935. Miss Trampleasure says that her name is pronounced trample-sure.
6 The following want-ad appeared under Personal in the London Morning Post, May 15, 1936, p. 1: “Advertiser, whose name is Hiccup, with broadcasting ambitions, wishes to adopt another name without publicity of change by deed poll. Suggestions welcome.”
7 Mr. Original Bugg, Liverpool Echo, July 14, 1938. See also AL4, p. 310 and Supplement I, pp. 462 and 660.
8 The last five come from Surnames, by Ernest Weekley; New York, 1916.
9 The last six are from English Surnames, by Mark Antony Lower; London, 1875.
10 I am indebted for the last four to Mr. Sinclair Lewis.
11 AL4, p. 502. It is the custom there, when a hyphenated name runs to three syllables or less altogether, to use it in full in addressing the bearer, but when it is longer only the last member is commonly used. Winston Churchill’s true family name is Spencer-Churchill, and he is always so designated in the Court Circulars issued from Buckingham Palace. When the Eightieth Congress assembled in January, 1947, two hyphenated surnames appeared on the roll of the House – the first recorded there for years. They were borne by the Hon. Horace Seely-Brown of Connecticut and the Hon. A. Fernós-Isern, resident commissioner for Puerto Rico.
1 GaNun & Parsons are opticians in New York City.
2 Originally Virden, the name of a settler on the Delaware in 1745. The d was raised by a clerical descendant “under the impression that the name was French.” I am indebted here to Mr. Ray VirDen, of New York.
3 The KenMore Kollector, house organ of the KenMore Stamp Company, was quoted on the New York Sun’s philately page, Aug. 15, 1941.
4 The name of a medical man recorded in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Aug. 16, 1941, p. 535.
5 Rufus Bernhard von KleinSmid became president of the University of Southern California in 1921. He was born in Illinois in 1875.
6 Charles K. RossKam “took out the Chicago Stock Company, one of the last of the larger rep companies to quit the road.” See T. Dwight Pepple Recalls More Popular Old-Time Rep Troupes, Billboard, Aug. 2, 1941.
7 Hugh RiDant appeared as accompanist at a concert of the Germania Orchestra and Maennerchor at Saginaw, Mich., Oct. 21, 1946.
8 Miss Helen VisKocil is a partner in the Purnell Art Galleries in Baltimore. Her name, she tells me, is of Czech origin and was originally Vyskocil. How and when its spelling was changed she has been unable to determine. According to the New Yorker, Feb. 15, 1947, p. 44, quoting the Scranton Times, John and Justina Sawkulich of Scranton had lately petitioned a local court for permission to change their name to SaCoolidge.
9 A gentleman named Hiram Be Bee, convicted of killing a city marshal, was sentenced to death at Manti, Utah, in 1946.
10 The name of Norman Bel Geddes, the stage designer, was so entered in the Manhattan telephone book for Winter-Spring, 1946, though he gives his father’s name as Geddes in Who’s Who in America, 1946–47.
11 Among curious forms of other sorts are T’Serclaes, H’Doubler, Mis-Kelly and U’ren. The first was reported by the Berkshire Evening Eagle (Pittsfield, Mass.), July 6, 1937. The second is the name of a distinguished surgeon of Springfield (Mo.), born in Kansas. A writer signing himself M.M.D. says in Irish Prefix, New York Sun (editorial page), Dec. 3, 1943, that Mis-Kelly is to be found in South Carolina, along with Mis-Campbell. Woulfe, in his Irish Names and Surnames, says that the Mis represents Mac. U’ren was the name of a well-known political reformer of the Bryan era.
12 A famous San Francisco editor of the early days, killed in a street duel, was James King of William.
1 Third edition; Oxford, 1879, p. 158.
2 Ann Arbor (Mich.), 1927, pp. 11–13. See also Krapp, Vol. I, pp. 201–05.
3 Orthography of Shakespeare’s Name, by Richard Grant White, Putnam’s Monthly, March, 1854, p. 295; Shakespeare’s Name and Origin, by Johannes Hoops, in Studies for
William A. Read; University (La.), 1940, pp. 67–87. The latter contains references to other discussions.
4 I take most of these variants from Bardsley’s Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames; London, 1901. Nicolay and Hay say in Abraham Lincoln: A History (Century Magazine, Nov., 1886, p. 6) that “there are Lincolns in Kentucky and Tennessee belonging to the same stock with the President whose names are spelled Linkhorn and Linkhern.”
5 I am indebted here, and for what follows, to Mr. Gustavus Swift Paine, of Southbury, Conn. In England Mayhew, in the past, has been written Maheu, Mayeu, Mayowe, Mayhoe and even Matthew.
6 New Yorker, Jan. 6, 1940.
7 What’s In a Name?, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, Nov., 1942, pp. 957–58. See also a letter about the troubles of the Postlethwaites in the New Yorker, July 9, 1938.
1 There are, of course, exceptions. Thus Carnegie and Carmichael, which have the stress on the second syllable in Britain, are commonly stressed on the first here.
2 Richmond (Va.), 1899, pp. 13–16.
3 Armistead is a rare surname in England, though Bardsley traces it in Yorkshire to 1379. In Virginia it is usually derived from the German Armstädt. See AL4, p. 479.
4 This is the accepted pronunciation in England also.
1 There is a considerable literature on the name and genealogy of the family, e.g., The Taliaferro Family, by John Bailey Calvert Nicklin, Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. VII, pp. 12–28; The Taliaferro Family, by William Buckner McGroarty, the same, pp. 179–82; The Taliaferro Family, by the same, William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. IV, pp. 191–99, and The Name and Family of Taliaferro; Washington, n.d. I am indebted here to Dr. Taliaferro and to Messrs. Sidney F. and H. M. Taliaferro.
2 The county-seat of Henrico county is Richmond. Four-Mile creek was apparently a branch of the James river.
1 Richmond News-Leader, May 16, 1930. I am indebted here to Howard F. Barker, whose information comes from Lemuel N. Enroughty, of Richmond.
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