Topical Guide 648
Mark Dorset
Name, What’s in a
Names and Naming: Children
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 2:
Mrs. Lodkochnikov had a well-to-do Uncle Ernie, and so did Mr. Lodkochnikov. When the Lodkochnikovs named their firstborn Ernie, they had supposed that they would be honoring both old birds with a single son, but they found that the uncles didn’t appreciate this economy. […] Fortunately, Mrs. Lodkochnikov’s next child was also a boy, and he was promptly named Ernie, in the hope that each of the uncles now could—and would—take pride in having a namesake of his own.
It didn’t work. […]
Mrs. Lodkochnikov, who felt that naming the Ernies had discharged all obligations to her relatives, or, perhaps, found that the ingratitude of the uncles Ernie had made her indifferent to such obligations, chose for her next child a euphonious name that […] came to suggest to her lightness and a romantic life, so she was delighted to be able to give it to her daughter.
Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, CHAP. XIX:
I WOULD sooner undertake to explain the hardest problem in geometry, than pretend to account for it, that a gentleman of my father’s great good sense,——knowing, as the reader must have observed him, and curious too in philosophy,—wise also in political reasoning,—and in polemical (as he will find) no way ignorant,—could be capable of entertaining a notion in his head, so out of the common track,—that I fear the reader, when I come to mention it to him, if he is the least of a cholerick temper, will immediatly throw the book by; if mercurial, he will laugh most heartily at it;—and if he is of a grave and saturnine cast, he will, at first sight, absolutely condemn as fanciful and extravagant; and that was in respect to the choice and imposition of christian names, on which he thought a great deal more depended than what superficial minds were capable of conceiving.
His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of magick bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed upon our characters and conduct.
The hero of Cervantes argued not the point with more seriousness,——nor had he more faith,——or more to say on the powers of necromancy in dishonouring his deeds,—or on DULCINEA’s name, in shedding lustre upon them, than my father had on those of TRISMEGISTUS or ARCHIMEDES, on the one hand—or of NYKY and SIMKIN on the other. How many CÆSARS and POMPEYS, he would say, by mere inspiration of the names, have been rendered worthy of them? And how many, he would add, are there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been totally depressed and NICODEMUS’D into nothing? […]
It was observable, that tho’ my father, in consequence of this opinion, had, as I have told you, the strongest likings and dislikings towards certain names;—that there were still numbers of names which hung so equally in the balance before him, that they were absolutely indifferent to him. Jack, Dick, and Tom were of this class: These my father called neutral names;—affirming of them, without a satire, That there had been as many knaves and fools, at least, as wise and good men, since the world began, who had indifferently borne them;—so that, like equal forces acting against each other in contrary directions, he thought they mutually destroyed each other’s effects; for which reason, he would often declare, He would not give a cherry-stone to choose amongst them. Bob, which was my brother’s name, was another of these neutral kinds of christian names, which operated very little either way; and as my father happen’d to be at Epsom, when it was given him,—he would oft-times thank Heaven it was no worse. Andrew was something like a negative quantity in Algebra with him;—’twas worse, he said, than nothing.—William stood pretty high:——Numps again was low with him:—and Nick, he said, was the DEVIL.
But of all names in the universe he had the most unconquerable aversion for TRISTRAM;—he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of any thing in the world,—thinking it could possibly produce nothing in rerum natura, but what was extremely mean and pitiful: So that in the midst of a dispute on the subject, in which, by the bye, he was frequently involved,——he would sometimes break off in a sudden and spirited EPIPHONEMA, or rather EROTESIS, raised a third, and sometimes a full fifth above the key of the discourse,——and demand it categorically of his antagonist, Whether he would take upon him to say, he had ever remembered,——whether he had ever read,—or even whether he had ever heard tell of a man, called Tristram, performing any thing great or worth recording?—No,—he would say,—TRISTRAM!—The thing is impossible.
What could be wanting in my father but to have wrote a book to publish this notion of his to the world? Little boots it to the subtle speculatist to stand single in his opinions,—unless he gives them proper vent:—It was the identical thing which my father did:— […] two years before I was born, he was at the pains of writing an express DISSERTATION simply upon the word Tristram,—shewing the world, with great candour and modesty, the grounds of his great abhorrence to the name.
When this story is compared with the title-page,—Will not the gentle reader pity my father from his soul?—to see an orderly and well-disposed gentleman, who tho’ singular,—yet inoffensive in his notions,—so played upon in them by cross purposes;——to look down upon the stage, and see him baffled and overthrown in all his little systems and wishes; to behold a train of events perpetually falling out against him, and in so critical and cruel a way, as if they had purposedly been plann’d and pointed against him, merely to insult his speculations.——In a word, to behold such a one, in his old age, ill-fitted for troubles, ten times in a day suffering sorrow;—ten times in a day calling the child of his prayers TRISTRAM!—Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which, to his ears, was unison to Nincompoop, and every name vituperative under heaven.
[I’ll jump ahead. Tristram’s father determines that the child will be called Trismegistus. MD]
Trismegistus, continued my father, drawing his leg back and turning to my uncle Toby——was the greatest (Toby) of all earthly beings—he was the greatest king——the greatest lawgiver——the greatest philosopher——and the greatest priest——and engineer—said my uncle Toby.
[But the christening does not go well. The newborn seems likely to die, so the christening is rushed. Mrs. Shandy’s chambermaid, Susannah, plays a key role. MD]
Reach me my breeches off the chair, said my father to Susannah.—There is not a moment’s time to dress you, Sir, cried Susannah—the child is as black in the face as my——As your what? said my father, for like all orators, he was a dear searcher into comparisons.—Bless, me, Sir, said Susannah, the child’s in a fit.—And where’s Mr. Yorick?—Never where he should be, said Susannah, but his curate’s in the dressing-room, with the child upon his arm, waiting for the name—and my mistress bid me run as fast as I could to know, as captain Shandy is the godfather, whether it should not be called after him.
Were one sure, said my father to himself, scratching his eye-brow, that the child was expiring, one might as well compliment my brother Toby as not—and it would be a pity, in such a case, to throw away so great a name as Trismegistus upon him——but he may recover.
No, no,——said my father to Susannah, I’ll get up——There is no time, cried Susannah, the child’s as black as my shoe. Trismegistus, said my father——But stay—thou art a leaky vessel, Susannah, added my father; canst thou carry Trismegistus in thy head, the length of the gallery without scattering?——Can I? cried Susannah, shutting the door in a huff.——If she can, I’ll be shot, said my father, bouncing out of bed in the dark, and groping for his breeches.
Susannah ran with all speed along the gallery.
My father made all possible speed to find his breeches.
Susannah got the start, and kept it—’Tis Tris—something, cried Susannah—There is no christian-name in the world, said the curate, beginning with Tris—but Tristram. Then ’tis Tristram-gistus, quoth Susannah.
——There is no gistus to it, noodle!—’tis my own name, replied the curate, dipping his hand, as he spoke, into the basin—Tristram! said he, &c. &c. &c. &c.—so Tristram was I called, and Tristram shall I be to the day of my death.
See also:
Name, What’s in a TG 38, TG 43, TG 96, TG 450, TG 483, TG 505; Names, Pronunciation of TG 44; Names and Naming: Place-Names TG 54; Names, Pronunciation of TG 414
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