Male
Abindav
Achimelech
Amikam
Asaph
Elnathan
Hanina
Itamar
Itiel
Joab
Jonadav
Mevasher-Tov
Yigoel
Female
Adina
Ahuda
Aviva
Beruria
Carmelit
Chemdah
Daliah
Hassidah
Orah
Tikvah
Yonah
Ziona4
Among the first German immigrants to America such characteristic given-names as Johann, Hans, Franz, Conrad, Caspar, Gottfried, Andreas, Otto, Herman, August, Anton and Dietrich were very common,1 but with the flight of the years most of them have been transformed into their British equivalents or abandoned altogether. The former process was facilitated, of course, by the fact that not a few were already identical with British names in spelling, though usually not in pronunciation, e.g., Robert and Arnold. The one brilliant exception to this obliteration has been mentioned before, to wit, Carl, which is now quite as common in the United States as it ever was in Germany.2 I suspect that German influence may have helped to popularize certain girls’ names, e.g., Anna, Elsa, Emma, Ernestine, Gertrude, Ida, Irma, Meta, Regina and Selma, but it certainly did not suffice to naturalize Kunigunde, Waldburgia, Irmingard and Sieglinde.3 The Scandinavians in the Northwest have added Helma, Karen4 and Ingeborg to the American répertoire, especially in that region, but for every name they have thus managed to preserve they have lost dozens. So with their boys’ names, e.g., Olaf, Gunnar, Axel, Nils, Anders, Holger, Knut, Jens: of the whole lot only Erik, spelled Eric, seems to have been adopted by Americans.
Dr. Nils Flaten, of St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., in a study of the given-names of the students enrolled there in 1937–38, found that though nearly all of them were of Norwegian ancestry, wholly or in part, only 42 of their 702 different names were genuinely Norwegian.5 Anders, Fritjof, Halvor, Leif, Nils and Thorvald each appeared but once, even among males whose parents were both Norwegian; among those with but one Norwegian parent they were lacking altogether. Among the girls Astri, Ragna, Sigrid and Solveig likewise appeared but once, and again only in children of pure Norwegian stock. The favorite boys’ names were Arthur, Clifford, Clarence, Donald, Gordon, Harold (from Harald), Kenneth, Lloyd, Norman, Orville, Paul, Robert, Thomas and William: these, taken together, were found no less than 124 times. The favorite girls’ names, with the number of their occurrences, were Helen, 17; Margaret, 15; Ruth, 14; Dorothy and Marion, 12 each; Lois and Mary, 9 each; Mildred, 8; Elaine and Esther, 7 each; Charlotte, Eunice, Irene and June, 6 each. Fancy names of the sort we have been admiring in the Dust Bowl were numerous, e.g., Brunell, Daryl, Durwood, Erliss, Glendor, Judean, Kermon, Murley, Selmer and Theos among the males, and Alette, Ardis, Edellyn, Erdine, Ferne, Juella, La Vaughn, La Verne, Marolyn, Monne Fay, Ninnie, Norena and Selpha among the females.1 Dr. Flaten says that when the early Norwegian immigrants sent their American-born children to the public-schools it was not uncommon for the schoolma’ams to give them “American” names. Thus Knut Larson became Kenneth and Nils Olson became Nelson. Some of these children kept both names through life, one for family and Landsleute and the other “to serve when dealing with Yankee neighbors.”
As I have noted in AL42 the Latin immigrants to the United States have had relatively little difficulty in retaining their often beautiful given-names, though occasionally a Mexican named Jesús is constrained to change to José or Joe in order to allay the horror and check the ribaldry of 100% Americans, or one named Angel adds an o for the same reason, and thus becomes an Italianate Angelo.3 In the Southwest many American girls have been given Spanish names, e.g., Dolores, Juanita, Anita and Constancia, and some of these have got into wide circulation, but in compensation the Mexican girls have taken to American names, e.g., Margaret, Annie, Edna, Lulu and Lucile.4 In theory, at least, every Mexican girl of pious parents is christened María, with the addition of one of the titles of the Virgin Mary, e.g., María de los Dolores, María del Rosario, María del Pilar –, but in practise the María is commonly dropped, and Dolores, Rosario or Pilar is used alone.1 The Portuguese in Massachusetts and Hawaii have a few given-names for boys that are very hard worked, e.g., José, Joāo, Manoel, António and Francisco, usually Americanized to Joseph, John, Manuel, Antone (or Tony) and Frank,2 but in recent years they have begun to bestow purely British names upon both boys and girls, and in a little while, no doubt, there will be Portuguese Elmers and Douglases, Doryses and LaVaughns.3
The Slavs and Greeks in America find it difficult to retain their native given-names and large numbers of them seem to have abandoned the effort. An account of the situation among the Czechs, based upon the researches of Monsignor J. B. Dudek, is given in AL44. The Slavic Jan, like the Scandinavian Karen, has gained some popularity among Americans, male and female, in the Fancy Names Belt,5 but the Slavs themselves show a strong tendency to adopt American names. Ivan J. Kramoris6 says that the Slovak Jaroslav is frequently changed to Jerry and Miloslav to Milo, and that Kenneth, Lee, Wayne, Deane, Anita and Gail are growing in popularity. Some of the Slovak girls have even adopted Karen. Once I received a letter from a Pole in Detroit who asked me to devise a plausible American substitute for his given name of Zdzislaw, which had been reduced to the unlovely Zelo in school. Unhappily, the best I could think of was Elmer. In 1940 another Detroit Pole, this time bearing the quite easy given-name of Antoni, applied to the local probate judge for permission to change it to Clinton. The reason he gave was that some of his American friends called him Tony, some Anton and some Anthony, to his confusion and embarrassment. But he did not propose to change his surname, so Antoni Przybysz became Clinton Przybysz!7 Greek given-names are so often changed in America that in 1943 the Greek War Relief Association found it necessary to issue a list of twenty-six of the more frequent ones, showing their original forms, the usual American equivalents, and the true English translations or transliterations.1 Konstantinos, it revealed, is commonly turned into Gus or Frank, Vasilos into William or Bill, Athanasios into Thomas or Tom, Panayiotis into Peter or Pete, Stavros into Steve or Sam, Dimitrios into James or Jim, Harilaos into Charlie, Ilias into Louie, and Anestis into Ernest. Among the Greek waiters in New York, according to the New Yorker,2 “Demosthenes becomes Dick, Francopolous turns out to be Frank or Franklin, and there was a Greek named Demetrios Garfakis who, on going to work in a hotel, became, not without stateliness, James Garfield.”
Among the Armenians there has been a wholesale change of native given-names into more or less equivalent American forms, e.g., Hovsep into Joseph, Garabed into Charles, Levon into Leon, Dikran into Dick or Richard, Misak into Mike, Mehron into Henry, Manoog into Mano, Sumpad into Sam, Davite into David, Vart into Rose, Aghavni into Dove or Dovey, Asthike into Stella, Nishan into James, Kevrok into George, and Hrant, Harutyoun and Hriar into Harry.3 In a directory of the State College at Fresno, Calif., I find girls with Armenian surnames named Bernice, Isabel, Margaret, Betty, Dorothe, Dorthea, Roxie, Grace, Blanche, Doris, Aurora and Mary Jane, and boys named Milton, Luther, Karl, Martin, Jacques, Harold, Albert, Ralph, Ray and Vaughn. The Arabic-speaking immigrants, mainly Syrians, frequently change the spelling of their names to make them less difficult to Americans, and sometimes drop them altogether. Mahmūd is changed to Mike, Dāwūd to David, Najib to Jimmie, Monsūr to Monte, Wādi’ to Wade, and Abu to George. A painter of Lebanese descent, originally Fu’ād Sāba, is now Clifford Saber, and various Arabic artistes have the names of Julia, Selma, Elvira and Lucile. But there are plenty of Arabic names that fit into English speechways without serious change, and these tend to be preserved, e.g., Aziz, Habib, Salim, Gibran, Salom, Fadwa, Khalil and Farhat.4 The Finns and Hungarians, who bridge the gap, philologically speaking, between Europe and Asia, make many changes in their given-names, e.g.
, Jussi and Juhana to John, Taavetti to David and Imari to Elmer among the Finns.1 The Hungarians change Ferenz to Frank or Frederick, Istvan to Stephen, Mihály to Michael, Jénos to John, Mór to Maurus or Maurice, József to Joseph, Géza to George and Elémer to Elmer, but some of their other names, e.g., Arpád, Béla, Lajos and Imre, seem to be surviving.
The Chinese in America commonly keep their surnames but abandon their clan and given-names for American given-names, and at the same time shift their surnames from first position to last, so that Lu Chi-hsin, for example, becomes David Lu.2 Some of the names adopted have a curious smack. Among the Chinese laundrymen of Baltimore Tom, Bennie, Harry, Willie and Charlie are common, and there is at least one Wesley and one Lear.6 And in lists of Chinese intellectuals I have encountered Daniel, Pearl, Jane, Rose, Jimmy, Eric and William.4 The Japanese in this country, like the Chinese, seldom change their surnames, and until the rise of the first American-born generation were similarly tenacious of their given-names, but of late many of them have begun to adopt American given-names. In the same Fresno State College Directory already quoted for Armenian names I find boys with Japanese surnames named George, James, Hugh, Ben and Don and girls named Ruth, Olive, Ethel and Enid. Peinecke, before cited, says that of 400 Matsus listed in the Hawaii Directory for 1934–35 only 1.2% had American given-names alone, and only 12.2% American names plus the initials that almost always stand for Japanese names, but these percentages have probably been increased since Pearl Harbor.Even in 1934–35 the Japanese teachers in the public-schools, a highly Americanized class, showed 56% of American given-names. The Japanese do not run to nicknames and are chary of using given-names save in the family. Said a Japanese Rotarian in 1937:
We Rotarians of Japan are told that calling a man by his first name or a nickname is a Western custom based upon a desire to be friendly, yet it does seem a bit extraordinary to us. We lay great stress on courtesy and ceremony. Most Japanese would consider addressing a man by his nickname as somewhat coarse and of questionable taste.1
Reinecke reports that many native Hawaiian given-names, e.g., Leilani, Iwalani, Maunaloa and Leimoni, continue to flourish in the islands, and even carry a certain prestige, especially among mixed bloods. A child of such mixed bloods, even if it bears an American first-name, is usually also outfitted with an Hawaiian middle-name, and such middle-names are sometimes of formidable length, e.g., Kekoalauliionapalihauliuliokekoolau, meaning “the fine leaved kaotree on the beautiful green ridges of the Koolau mountains.” So long a name, of course, has to be abbreviated for everyday use. Some of the mixed bloods show strange and wonderful combinations of genes, ranging from Hawaiian to German, and from Japanese to French, Italian and Portuguese. These mongrels, especially those having Filipino blood, which is itself badly mixed, have a liking for curious double names, e.g., Dorothy Dot and Moses Moke.2 Others, says Reinecke, have “tasteless names reminiscent of those found in Southern directories,” e.g., Luckie, Buddy, Sonny, Sweetheart and Loving.
1 In this section a few passages are lifted from Notes on American Given-Names, a paper I contributed to Bookman’s Holiday, a Festschrift in honor of Harry Miller Lydenberg; New York, 1943. I am indebted for permission to use them to Mr. Deoch Fulton, head of the New York Public Library Press.
2 World Almanac, 1921, p. 150. His studies were based upon “100,000 names in biographical dictionaries, Army and Navy registers, Masonic rosters, etc., and the Detroit City Directory.”
3 More Williams Than Johns, Chicago Tribune, March 9, 1938.
1 Frank J. Fay, register of births, deaths and marriages in Boston, reported in 1942 that John led among the male children whose births were reported in the city during the first six months of the year. Mary and John, Boston Herald (editorial), July 14, 1942.
2 N or M, London Times Literary Supplement, March 30, 1946, p. 151. But in the Domesday Book of c. 1086 there had been 68 Williams, 48 Roberts and 28 Walters to but 10 Johns, and at the end of the Twelfth Century, according to E. G. Withycombe in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names; New York, 1947, p. xxiii, William accounted for 15% of the recorded given-names, with John accounting for but 2%. A century later, however, John had jumped to first place with 25%, followed by William with 15%, Robert with 11%, Ralph with 10% and Richard with 8%.
3 An example is Michael, which arose to popularity among the English upper classes c. 1900 and was imitated by American Anglophiles. Peter had a similar vogue a bit later – launched, according to Eric Partridge in Name This Child; London, 1936, by the popularity of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, 1904. The curious spread of Carl in the United States is noted in AL4, p. 506, n. 1. In the House of Representatives of the Eightieth Congress no less than seven out of the 435 members bore it. It stands in forty-second place in the Newton list of 1920. The rise and fall of various women’s names has been frequently noted. The cases of Barbara, Ella, Emma, Joan, Muriel, Phyllis and many others are discussed by Miss Withycombe in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, just cited. For Joan see also Joan, by B. H. P. Fisher, London Times Literary Supplement, Feb. 16, 1946, p. 79, and the William Feather Magazine, Nov., 1944, p. 24. For Maud see Life With Salt on the Side, by E. V. Durling, New York Journal-American, June 5, 1946.
4 It seems to be resented by some of its bearers on the ground that it is too common. “If you should have a boy,” wrote John Keats to G. A. Keats, Jan. 13, 1820, “do not christen him John; ’tis a bad name and goes against a man.” Perhaps he was envious of the mellifluous name of his rival, Percy Bysshe Shelley.
1 Codex Iuris Canonici; Rome, 1917. The commission which edited the code was appointed by Pope Pius X on March 19, 1904. It consisted of cardinals only, with the Pope himself as president, but it took the advice of many consultors, some of them resident in Rome and some not. The code was made binding upon all “patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops and other ordinaries and … the professors and students of Catholic universities and seminaries,” and hence upon all lay Catholics. It was promulgated by the bull Providentissima Mater Ecclesia. On Sept. 15, 1917 Pope Benedict XV set up a commission of cardinals to interpret it, and that commission has since handed down many decisions. On Dec. 19, 1917 it decided that all dubia (questions) must be submitted by or through bishops or the “major superiors of orders and religious congregations.”
2 In France, during the Revolution, an effort was made to abolish, or, at all events, to limit the use of saints’ names, but it came to nothing, and nearly all Frenchmen of today bear them. See Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, edited by James Hastings; New York, 1928, Vol. IX, p. 150. In England a constitution of John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1292) still seems to have some force. It provides that “ministers shall take care not to permit wanton names, which, being pronounced, do sound to lasciviousness, to be given to children baptized, especially of the female sex; and if otherwise it be done, the name shall be changed by the bishop at confirmation.” Ernest Weekley says in Jack and Jill; London. 1939, p. 2, that “this change has often been effected.” He also says that candidates for holy orders sometimes change their given-names at ordination.
3 This is done also, of course, in the case of adult converts, who may bear such abhorrent given-names as Darwin, Wesley or Luther, and desire to keep them. In 1942 a young priest named Ellsworth S. Fortman celebrated his first mass at Holy Cross Church, Baltimore. In the account of the event in the Baltimore Catholic Review there was no hint as to what the S. stood for, but no doubt it was a saint’s name. The case of Bishop Duane G. Hunt, of the Salt Lake City diocese, is not so easily accounted for, for his middle name is Garrison.
1 Moral Theology: A Complete Course, by John A. McHugh and Charles J. Callan; New York, 1930, Vol. II, p. 650.
2 Baptismal and Confirmation Names, by Edward F. Smith; New York 1935.
1 Canon Law, tr. by Joseph M. O’Hara and Francis Brennan; Philadelphia, 1934.
2 There are two Amleth sagas in Icelandic, in which he appears as Ambales. His story was
first told by the Dane, Saxo Grammaticus, c. 1200.
3 They were encouraged in this attitude by John Knox’s Calvinist Book of Discipline, 1560, their favorite guide to conduct. It said: “Let persuasions be used that such names that do not savor of either paganism or popery be given to children at their baptism, but principally those whereof there are examples in the Scriptures.”
4 The translation they use was the Genevan of 1560 – called the Breeches Bible because of its rendering of Genesis III, 7: “They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves breeches.” It was the first English Bible printed in small format. Charles W. Bardsley says in Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature; London, 1880, p. 38, that it “ran through unnumbered editions, and for sixty years, if not for seventy, was the household Bible” of England. Among the American Puritans it survived even longer. In the favorite American edition a list of approved Biblical given-names was printed in an appendix.
1 The more earnest Puritans unearthed some really formidable specimens, e.g., Zerubbabel, Zaphenathpaneah and Mahershalalhashbaz. See In the Driftway, Nation, Feb. 7, 1923, p. 150.
2 In Puritan Christian Names, London Times Literary Supplement, July 25, 1935, W. Fraser Mitchell suggested that their popularity was often “a sign of education rather than of piety.” He cited the fact that Foston Watson, in The English Grammar School to 1660, offered evidence “of the teaching of Hebrew in leading grammar schools” in the Puritan period, and went on: “A parent familiar with the meaning of a Hebrew name was as likely to bestow it on his son as parents familiar with classical names were to draw upon these – a practise very prevalent in the same period and for a century longer.
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