The conflict of September 14, 1862, is called the battle of South Mountain at the North and the battle of Boonsboro’ at the South. So many battlefields of the Civil War bear double names that we cannot believe that duplication has been accidental. It is the unusual which impresses. The troops of the North came mainly from cities, towns, and villages, and were, therefore, impressed by some natural object near the scene of the conflict and named the battle from it. The soldiers from the South were chiefly from the country, and were, therefore, impressed by some artificial object near the field of action. In one section the naming has been after the handiwork of God; in the other section it has been after the handiwork of man. Thus, the first passage of arms is called the battle of Bull Run at the North – the name of a little stream. At the South it takes the name of Manassas, from a railroad station. The second battle on the same ground is called the Second Bull Run by the North, and the Second Manassas by the South. Stone’s defeat is the battle of Ball’s Bluff with the Federals, and the battle of Leesburg with the Confederates. The battle called by General Grant Pittsburg Landing, a natural object, was named Shiloh, after a church, by his antagonist. Rosecrans called his first great fight with Bragg the battle of Stone River, while Bragg named it after Murfreesboro’, a village. So McClellan’s battle of the Chickahominy, a little river, was with Lee the battle of Cold Harbor, a tavern. The Federals speak of the battle of Pea Ridge, of the Ozark range of mountains, and the Confederates call it after Elk Horn, a country inn. The Union soldiers called the bloody battle three days after South Mountain from the little stream, Antietam, and the Southern troops named it after the village of Sharpsburg. Many instances might be given of this double naming by the opposing forces.2
The first study of church names ever undertaken in the United States was published in 1891 by two anonymous laymen of Rhode Island.1 They were pious Episcopalians, and confined their inquiry to churches of their own communion. They found that there were then 3918 in operation in the United States, and that all save 54 of this number bore the names of saints, of higher personages in the heavenly hierarchy, or of salient events, objects or doctrines, e.g., Ascension, Atonement, Mount Calvary, Incarnation and Advent. Not less than 385 were dedicated to St. Paul – 18 more than were dedicated to Christ. The latter, however, were reinforced by 67 churches called Good Shepherd, 38 called Redeemer, 26 called Our Saviour, 21 called Messiah, and perhaps a score more of similar names. St. John followed St. Paul with 366 churches, and then came Trinity with 354, Grace with 279, St. James with 178, St. Luke with 142, St. Mark with 136 and St. Peter with 122. The Episcopalians fight shy of Mariolatry, so there were only 97 dedicated to St. Mary and three to St. Mary the Virgin. But 87 were dedicated to the First Person of the Trinity, 85 under the name of Emmanuel, one under that of Emmanuelo and one under that of Our Father. The dedications to the Third Person numbered 8, all of them called Holy Spirit. The anonymous ecclesiologists found but 54 Episcopal churches in the whole country which lacked pious names, nearly all of them in Virginia and Maryland. In both States it was the custom, in colonial days, to name churches, not after saints, but after the communities in which they were built, and those old names have survived. Some of the curious church names unearthed by this inquiry were House of Prayer, Gloria Dei, Reconciliation, Bread of Life, Holy Fellowship, Regeneration, St. Ansgarius, Saint Esprit (French for Holy Ghost) and St. Mary Magdalene. To it was appended a survey of British churches, which turned up, in England, Charles King the Martyr, Saint Cross, SS. Cyricus and Julieta, St. Gaffo, SS. Gluvias and Budoke, Holy Paraclete, St. John in the Wilderness, St. Peter Port, St. Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins, and St. Delta, and, in Wales, St. Cwfig, St. Cyffelach, SS. Dyunog, Iddog and Menw, St. Llanwddog, St. Tyclecho, St. Wrthwl and St. Ynghednoddle. The English are much less shy of Mariolatry than American Episcopalians, so they have 2453 churches named St. Mary the Blessed Virgin, and perhaps a hundred more showing Mary in other combinations.1
The authors of this study reported, with ejaculations of satisfaction, that they could find very few Episcopal churches named after the persons who built them, but they had to add that this was a common custom in the early days, when the founder was usually promoted to sainthood later on if his church turned out well.2 The Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians and other such non-conformists still honor founders in this way, and sometimes a process not unlike canonization follows. They use actual saints’ names sparingly, but name many churches after streets or neighborhoods, or numerically. All the Christian Science dispensaries are numbered, and in such citadels of the faith as Los Angeles they have gone into high figures. The colored brethren have some favorite church names that seem to be peculiar to them, e.g., Shiloh (not the battle, but the village in Palestine where the sons of Benjamin got themselves wives by making off with the female dancers at a vintage festival),3 Ebenezer (a monument set up to mark the site of Samuel’s victory over the Philistines), Canaan, Sharon, Bethel, Berea, Macedonia, Abyssinia and Zion. Some of the Negro store-churches in the South4 have extremely curious names. I once found one in Baltimore whose sign showed that it was the Watch-Your-Step Church of God.5 Catholic Churches usually have saints’ names, though such forms as Corpus Christi, Immaculate Conception and Sacred Heart of Jesus are common. They are never called after streets, neighborhoods or founders. Of late the cult of the Little Flower has multiplied places of worship dedicated to her, but they are called shrines, not churches.6
The tendency to seek mellifluous euphemisms for such terms as cemetery, churchyard, burial-ground and graveyard, noted in Supplement I, p. 570,1 long ago influenced the naming of cemeteries, and there are many Heavenly Rests, Memory Groves and Sweet Homes throughout the country. Among the colored people of the South some bizarre names are in use, e.g., Furnace Hill, in Lowndes county, Mississippi. Miss Lila M. Herring, of the State Bureau of Vital Statistics at Jackson, has collected many others from the State, e.g., Saint’s Rest, Last Hope, Evening Star, Twilight, Mount Comfort, Wonder Home, Love Joy, Harmonia, Pleasant Dreams, Tribulation, Peter Rock, Sunflower, Little Hope and Traveler’s Rest.2 In the South, as elsewhere, many cemeteries bear the names of the local communities. The aforesaid Furnace Hill is probably an example, and others from Mississippi are Corn Cob, Red Bone, Freewill, Toe Nail, Stockfarm, Jumpertown, Society Hill, White Cloud, Yellow Leaf, Pickle, Remus, Turtleskin and Cistern Hill. To the bucolic regions of the country also belong the traditional names of quilts, though here the original inventors were probably all Caucasians. A large number from the Ozarks were listed by Vance Randolph and Isabel Spradley in 1933,3 and more from other regions by Carrie A. Hall and Rose G. Kretsinger in 1935,4 e.g., Turkey Tracks, Star in a Mist, Joseph’s Coat, Ham Shank, Widower’s Choice, Leap Frog, Rose of Sharon, Spider Web, Spider’s Den, High Wind, Grandmother’s Fan, Rattlesnake Shake, So Mote it Be, Mill Wheel, Rob Peter and Pay Paul, Hearts and Gizzards, and Steps to the Altar.1
“Names, Reader,” said Robert Southey in “The Doctor,”2 “are serious things.” He then proceeded to devote a long chapter to them, beginning with the names of lodges of Odd Fellows in England, e.g., Rose of Sharon, Poor Man’s Protection and Apollo and St. Peter, and going on to those of gooseberries, apples, pears, roses, bulls, horses, pigeons, and the devils of Hell. With the decay of theology most of the last-named have passed out, but there are some that certainly deserve revival, if only for use as objurgations, e.g., Cocabelto, Kellicocam, Motubizanto, Ju, Arraba, Lacahabarratu, Oguerracatam, Buzache, Baa, Kelvoryvybegg, Keileranny, Cnocknatratin, Drung and Knockadawe. Southey listed no name for a bull save Comet, but C. A. Bond, extension editor of the State College of Washington, at Pullman, Wash., has published an instructive report on the names given to cows in that great State.3 Some were apparently suggested by “outstanding anatomical or physiological peculiarities,” e.g., Hatrack, Washtub, Leaky and Shimmy; others by sentiment, e.g., Grandma, Purity, Fairyland and Desire; yet others by “humor and perhaps downright disgust,” e.g., Twerp, TNT, Little Ra
t and Bot Fly, and still others by “literature, history and the drama,” e.g., Sheba, Portia and Imogene. Mr. Bond found a cow named Napoleon and another named George.4
“There remains one stronghold,” said Willis Thornton, writing in 1926,5 “where the romance of names is undimmed: it is the turf.” In support thereof he offered some mellifluous specimens from the roll of American thoroughbreds, e.g., Summer Sigh, Carmencita, Altar Fire, Dream of Allah, Midnight Bell, Simoon, Satana, Ponjola, Monday Morning and Ethereal Blue, and also a few on the sportive side, Doughnut, Brainstorm, Whiff, Spot Cash, In Memoriam, Nose Dive and Jealous Woman. But he forgot to add that the naming of colts headed for the big tracks is rigidly regulated by the Jockey Club, and that the fancy of breeders and owners is thus seriously hobbled. The rules in force in 1947 were as follows:
1. Names are limited to fourteen letters, and are to consist of not more than three words; space, punctuation marks, etc., to count as letters.
2. Names of living persons are not eligible unless their written permission to use their names is filed with the Jockey Club.
3. Names of stallions whose daughters are in the stud are not eligible.
4. Names of famous horses are not eligible.
5. Names whose spelling or pronunciation is similar to names in use are not eligible.
6. Names of famous or notorious people are not eligible.
7. Trade names, etc., or names claimed for advertising purposes are not eligible.1
Race-horses commonly have stable-names to go with their registered names, so that one appearing on the register as a Whirlwind or Cleopatra may be Jack or Molly to his or her intimates. The same is true of blooded dogs. In the stud-books of their breeds they often bear names that approximate genealogies, but at home even the proudest champion is usually only Butch or Lassie. Captain William Lewis (Will) Judy, a leading American authority, reports that of 116,000 dogs entered in a radio contest in 1939, 1400 were named Prince, 1200 Queenie, 1000 Spot, 500 Rover, and 30 each Rags, Towser, Muggsie and Fido.2 It will be noted that Fido, once a favorite, is now slinking into the shadows. So are Ponto and Bruno, and in 1946 the New York Daily News reported that Rover was yielding to Butch,3 which was apparently introduced by a popular comic-strip, along with Sandy. Other color names are also in vogue, e.g., Whitie, Red, Buff and Blackie, and the two World Wars gave a lift to Colonel, Major, Captain and General.4 Dogs of German origin are often called Fritz or Heinie, and many Irish terriers are Tim, Terry or Mickey. Other names now favored are Mitzie, Rex, Dixie and Danny.1 Dorothy Parker once had a dachshund named Robinson, and I have heard of several hounds, all of them vicious, named Mencken.
“Editors of early newspapers in America,” said Cedric Larson in 1937,2 “delighted to give their organs pretentious names. Patriotism was exuberant … and the tyrannies of Europe were real.” The result was a great spate of such titles as Vox Populi, Herald of Freedom, Flag of Our Union, Freeman, Spirit of Democracy and Genius of Liberty. That fashion abated when the movement into the West began, and was succeeded by one for homelier and more picturesque names, often humorous, e.g., Hustler, Avalanche, Breeze, Clarion, Tomahawk, Searchlight, Meteor, Headlight, Eagle, Scout, Plain Dealer and Bazoo, most of them indicating a hot concern with the community interest. Walt Whitman, in “Slang in America,” recalled some curious Western examples: the Tombstone Epitaph in Arizona, the Fairplay Flume in Colorado (it still exists), the Ouray Solid Muldoon in the same State, and the Jimplecute in Texas; and Farmer, in his “Americanisms Old and New” added a Rustler, a Cyclone, a Prairie Dog, a Cowboy, a Knuckle and a Lucifer. Nearly all of these yielded to the ideas of elegance which came in after the Civil War, and Larson shows that most American newspapers, in the smaller towns as in the big cities, now have extremely decorous names. The favorite is News, which was borne by 375 of the 3,000-odd dailies of 1936, and it was followed in order by Times, Journal, Herald, Tribune, Press (including Free Press), Star, Record (or Recorder), Democrat, Gazette, Post, Courier, Sun, Leader and Republican (or Republic). The amalgamation of newspapers that has gone on since World War I has produced a large number of hyphenated names, and many a town of only a few thousand population has a Times-Herald, a Star-Gazette or a Journal-Standard. Many village weeklies seek to gain additional dignity by substituting in their names the name of the county they serve for that of the town, and some take in even larger areas, say a valley, e.g., the Aroostook Republican of Caribou, Maine, the Everglades News, of Canal Point, Fla., the Sierra Valley News, of Loyalton, Calif., and the Eastern Shore Republican, of Princess Anne, Md.
As I have said, not many of the old racy names survive, but here and there one is to be found, e.g., the Rustler-Herald of King City, Calif., the Headlight of Terry, Miss., the Searchlight and Republic of Culbertson, Mont., and the Flashlight of Eureka Springs, Mo. Among the college papers a more picturesque nomenclature remains more or less in fashion: there are specimens in the Diamondback at the University of Maryland, the Polygraph at the Billings (Mont.) Polytechnic Institute, the Stilletto at the Kirksville (Mo.) College of Osteopathy, and the Sour Owl at the University of Kansas. The little magazines which flourished in the 1890s usually had uncommon names, and in 1942 John Valentine listed some of them1 – Angel’s Food, Gray Goose, Kit-Kat, Lucky Dog, White Elephant, Owl, Kiote and Black Cat.2 The papers published by soldiers during World War II – not the official papers edited by Army press-agents, but those produced by soldiers on their own – often had amusing names, but so far there has been no attempt to make a full list of them. In 1942 Thomas R. Henry3 recorded a White Falcon in Iceland, a Kodiak Bear on Kodiak Island, a Fever Sheet at the Carlisle (Pa.) Army Hospital, a Jungle Cat in Panama, a Horned Toad at Las Vegas, Nev., and a Midnight Sun in Alaska.4
522. [All the States have nicknames, and some have more than one.] The eldest seems to be Old Dominion, applied to Virginia. In its present form the DAE does not trace the term beyond 1778, but in an earlier form, Ancient Dominion, it goes back to the end of the Seventeenth Century. Ancient Dominion, however, was not, strictly speaking, a nickname, but simply a formal legal designation, born of the fact that Charles II, on ascending the English throne in 1660, quartered the arms of the Virginia colony upon his royal shield, along with those of his four other dominions, England, Scotland, Ireland and (in theory) France. Three years later Charles granted Virginia a new seal, with the motto En dat Virginia quintam, and it continued in use until October, 1779, when it was supplanted by the present seal, with the new motto, Sic semper tyrannis, quoted with approbation by John Wilkes Booth on the evening of April 14, 1865. Both quartering and motto were graceful acknowledgments of the fact that Virginia was the first British possession to recognize the restored monarch. Two other once-familiar nicknames for the State, the Cavalier State and the Mother of Presidents, have lost vogue in recent years, the first because the researches of iconoclastic historians, both damyankee and native, have demonstrated that many of the early settlers were not cavaliers at all, but proletarians and even malefactors, and the second because though Virginia supplied the Republic with seven of its first dozen Presidents, it has hatched but one since the death of Zachary Taylor in 1850, to wit, Woodrow Wilson. The State has also been called the Mother of States, an allusion to the fact that a number of the new States west of the Blue Ridge were carved out of its soil and settled by its people. But this name, if the DAE searchers are to be trusted, was not applied to Virginia until 1855, whereas it had been given to Connecticut seventeen years earlier. Another old name for the State was Mother of Statesmen, but it fell into disuse when the Civil War broke up its old political hegemony. Since that time Virginia has produced very few statesmen of any size.
The DAE presents evidence that so long ago as December 2, 1784 George Washington referred to New York as “the seat of Empire,” but the term Empire State did not come into general use until the census of 1820 showed that the State had gone ahead of Virginia in population. After the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 New York City acqui
red a commercial and financial preeminence that it has not lost since. At this time, and for that reason the State was dubbed the Gateway to the West, but the sobriquet is now forgotten. Another obsolete name, Excelsior State, was suggested by the fact that Excelsior is the motto on the seal of the State, adopted by the State Senate on March 18, 1778. It was assumed by the political Latinists at Albany that excelsior was an adverb meaning upward, and it was used in this sense by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1841 as the title of one of his most popular poems, but long years afterward the Oxford dons of the NED announced that the word was really an adjective meaning simply higher. During the Civil War era of highfalutin excelsior became a common term indicating excellence, and was applied to regiments, restaurants, new strains of grain, and various manufactured products. It still survives as the name of the thin wood shavings used for stuffing upholstery and packing fragile objects, introduced in 1860. But Empire State goes on in full glory, and is in frequent use. The New York City telephone directory bristles with the names of companies embodying it, or its back-form, Empire. The Empire State Express, a celebrated train of the New York Central System, has been running since October 26, 1891, and for many years was the fastest long-run train in the United States.1 The Empire State Building at Fifth avenue and Thirty-fourth street, the highest structure on earth – 1287 feet, including its 102 stories and spire – was opened on May 1, 1931, and made the first pages of the world on July 28, 1945 by being rammed though not sunk by an Army airplane lost in a fog. Its captain, for many years, was the Hon. Al Smith, but he escaped this unprecedented experience by dying on October 14, 1944.
American Language Supplement 2 Page 86