Show WHEN NAMES BEGAN how some of our ancestors Rec elred y their patronymics single names were most common a thousand years ago says the davenport As is the case with I 1 our Bucks and brights in the oxen line our dans and jerrys in the horse stalls ar our jip and tige in the kennels so arthen it was with kanand woman kind ta T a single name was all sufficient in the king he nry L about eight hundred years ago double names became rather fashionable fashion abre so much so that robert his natural son objected to marrying the wealthy heiress of a powerful lord because eh had but a single name from this time on the fashion changed and in the time of edward I 1 an act of parliament rendered it obligatory to fake on the double nami the family name or two names of some sort hence sprang up such names as henry fitz randolph henry son of randolph hugh fitz henry henry fitz henry etc with such as had no clearly defined family ties location or occupation was used to help out hence john atte wood john atwood william atte water atwater thomas of th woods william atte bachese at bakehouse now william baker mar garetson garet bon good heart now margaret bunker walter atte Shep jarde now walter shepherd john scott was from scotland john walsh was from wales thomas booro was of moorish j descent and peter dane was from den mark and so on almost every name being s revelation of its owners location condition or occupation then were the smiths the of metals most numerous then sprang up ahe butlers bottlers the hunters and porters th brewers the cooks and the darks clerics but with all these names and double names no triple or double christian names appeared for hundreds ot years later even until amilca brought one forth in the person of one jonas longford redwood of rhode island in and england sir prestone pl estone warwick barnfield in 1817 john W bunyan or chrystopher K columbus john thomas calvin such names were happily unknown and the bare idea of such added seems as 3 a to now all udomo the hon abraham lincoln there is good reason in double names but the interposing and piling ap and spelling out your william makepeace rays louise chandler Moul tons charles dudley camers seems to weaken instead of strengthen the persons name besides bad habits are cumulative and already there appears upon the literary horizon some name so to speak in imitation of brute peculiarity Is there no way cf stopping i if a british parliament could up to the dual nomenclature can not an american congress reduce this many name craze to proper standard long family names are a i at best but come to tack on a long ahns lian nam and pit a jot more becomes a positive tribulation putting the pen slaves out cf all patience with their own if the name unit mim be placed at john smith and for every added syllabic a double tele gradhand grap hand rostal rate were lawfully imposed these preposterous long drawn signatures would soon be reduced to the better ahapa of julius baisar Ca isar pontius pilate martin litlie and good old andrew jackson |