PART VII. Names from the Slavonic.

Section I.—Slavonic Races.

The last class of names that have had any influence upon European nomenclature are those borne by the Slavonic race dwelling to the eastward of the Teutons, and scarcely coming into notice before the period of modern history.

Nor, indeed, have they been ever very prominent. Slipping into the regions left empty by the Teutons, or depopulated by the forays of the Tatars, these nations have carried on a life for the most part obscure and industrious, though now and then drawn, either by Mongol fury on the one hand, or by Teuton ambition on the other, into gallant exertions; but a genuine Slavonian has seldom or never extended his power far beyond his own country. Imaginative and poetical, they have nevertheless few ancestral traditions, they have no history previously to coming under the influence of other countries, and their migrations are even less known than those of the early Kelts and Teutons.

All that we do know is that by the time the ten horns of modern empire were developing themselves, there was a long strip of Slavonians, or Wends, extending from the White and Baltic seas down to the Black and Adriatic, making a division between the Teutons and the Tatars, but utterly unable to oppose a barrier when periodical fits of fury and invasion seized upon the wild hordes to the eastward of them.

Wends, or Venedi, seems to have been one universal national term; Slava furnished another. The word, like the Greek κλύα and Teuton hlod, is from the root çru, and denotes fame or glory; and it is constantly employed in the personal names, commencing Slavoljub, glorious love, Slavomir, glorious peace, Slavomil, friend of glory, and terminating Siroslav, far-famed, and many others, usually rendered as slas and slaus.

But just as Geta, the Goth, stood for a bondsman in classical literature, so when the Slav became the captive of the German, his 434once glorious epithet became the generic term of the thrall, bought and sold, while the derivatives of the Latin servus were reserved for the free hired domestic. Glory had literally turned to slavery, perhaps the more readily because it is the Slav who, of all the Indo-European race, most readily bows beneath the yoke, so that to this day, his forms of courtesy are the most servile, his respectful address the most extravagant, used in Europe.

At our first glimpse of the Slavonic nations, the Danube flowed through the midst of a considerable settlement of them, known to classical writers as Bulgarians, and most savage foes to the Eastern empire, who lost army after army in expeditions against these barbarians.

In the North, two great merchant republics at Kief and Novgorod were conducting the trade of the North, and apparently living an honourable life of industry and self-government.

All around the east and south of the Baltic were other large territories occupied by Slavonians, from Finland to Jutland; and, with few exceptions, most of these lands still own a Slavonian population, though only one has a native government.

The Mongols have, perhaps, chiefly influenced the changes undergone by the Slaves. The great and terrible Tatar invasion of Attila trod them down, but by ruining the Roman empire, established homes for them, especially round the Danube. In the kingdom now called Hungary, there is a large Slavonian population, called Slovak, from the term slov, a word, living mixed with the remains of the Huns, but keeping a separate language.

The mountain-girt lozenge of Bohemia was also a separate kingdom, with its own language, not the same, though nearly related, and more resembling that of the fierce elective kingdom of Poland.

The migrations of the Teutons drove most of the Wends out of Denmark into the marshy and sandy lands at the mouth of the Vistula; and, somewhat later, home quarrels, and fears of the Tatars, impelled the republics of Russia to call in the aid of the Northmen, who quickly put an end to the freedom of the cities, and set up the principality that was the germ of the Russian empire.

The Greek Church converted the Bulgarians about the year 870, and the translations of the liturgy and Scriptures, made for their benefit, have been the authorized version of the Slavonians ever since. The same missionaries, Cyrillus and Methodius, likewise baptized the first Christian king of Bohemia; and in the next century, a Bohemian bishop, Adalbert of Prague, converted Hungary and Poland. But these three realms gave their allegiance to the Western, not the Eastern Church; and though Hungary received much of her civilization from Constantinople, her faith was with Rome. The Norse Grand Princes of Muscovy themselves sought Christianity from Byzantium, and the Russian Church has ever since been the most earnest and conservative of the Eastern Churches.

The Baltic Slavonians held out longest against the Gospel. Missionaries preached to them, and orders of knighthood crusaded against them on far into modern history, and the final period of their 435conversion and settlement into small duchies or realms, held by the conquering knights, is hardly worth tracing out.

The next step in general Slavonic history is the great Turkish outbreak, which almost crushed Muscovy, and infused a strong Tatar element into the Russian population; and, finally, conquered the Greek empire, and with it the Bulgarian lands, which, though never Mahometanized, have ever since remained under Turkish dominion.

The kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, with the other western Slavonic provinces, were one by one absorbed into the German empire, or by the House of Austria—it made little difference which was the original tenure—all are ‘Austrian’ now, whether willingly or not.

With the same skill, the House of Brandenburg obtained the domains of the Baltic Slaves, and formed the kingdom of Prussia, very Teutonic to the west, and very Slavonic to the east.

Meantime, after a long period of exhaustion, almost of extinction, the Muscovites came forth from the Tatar oppression stronger than ever; and by gradual conquests from their former enemies, at length formed their huge empire of the east.

And Poland, after many a turbulent election, many a summons to German princes to hold the reins of its restless multitude, was finally and unrighteously dismembered and divided, and the cry of its wrongs has ever since rent the ears of Europe.

The existing Slavonian languages are the Russian, the literary language of the great empire; the Livonian, or the language spoken by the persons who are not of Finnish blood in the elbow beneath the Gulf of Finland; the Lettish and Lusatian, used by the old Prussian subjects and their neighbours in Russia; the Polish; the Slovak, spoken in Hungary; the Servian, Illyrian, and Croatian, all representing the old Bulgarian.

Of all these, it is perhaps the Polish that has contributed the most names to the European stock, and they are but few; but there were intermarriages, and friendly intercourse, besides occasional elections to the Polish throne; and, latterly, the dispersion and exile of the Polish nobility carried their names into distant parts of Europe, and gave them a romantic interest.

Bohemia and Hungary sent a few names into the Austrian line, but they soon died out; and Russia uses comparatively few native Slavonic names, but makes chief use of those of the saints of the Greek Church.

Slavonian languages are said to be soft in their own speech, but our letters clumsily render their sounds, and make them of cumbrous length; and the few names that have been adopted have been severely mangled.

They are, for the most part, grand and poetical compounds, often exactly corresponding to Greek or Teutonic names, and with others more poetical than those in either of these other languages, such as Danica, the Morning star; Zwezdana, or in Russian, Swetlana, a Star; Zora, Zorana, Zorica, the Slovak Aurora; and Zorislava, the 436Dawn of glory; Golubica, the Dove; Lala, the Tulip. The Slaves use likewise the amaranth, or everlasting flower, as a name both for men and women, namely, Smiljan and Smiljana; and while a man may be called Dubislav, or Oak fame, the Servians and Illyrians call their daughters after fruits,—Grozdana, Rich in grapes; Jagoda, the Strawberry; and Kupina, or Kupiena, the Gooseberry.^[149]

Section II.—Slavonian Mythology.

The Slavonians had a polytheistic religion, answering, in spirit, to that of the other Indo-European nations; but as they had no mythic literature, like Greece and Scandinavia, we are dependent for information upon popular ballads and superstitions, eked out by the notices of missionaries and statements of conquerors; and it is not easy to perceive whether their myths were an independent branch of the general stock, or only the Teutonic religion under another dress.

The divine word, in all the various nations, is Bog. It was used for God, both in the old heathen times, and afterwards in its full sense, when Christianity became known to them. It enters into numerous names, both before and after Christianity. The most noted is Bogislav, or God’s glory, which was borne by many a Pole and old Prussian; and, in 1627, it finished off the old Slavonic line of dukes of Pomerania, from whom that state came to the acquisitive house of Brandenburg. The historical Latinism of the name is Bogislaus; and it is still current in Illyria as Bogosav.

Theophilus is literally translated by Bogoljub or Bogoje in Illyria, and Bohumil in Bohemia. This makes it probable that Robert Guiscard thence took the name of his eldest son, Bohemond, giving it a Norman termination. The mother is called Alvareda, and she is said to have been divorced on the score of consanguinity; but it is not improbable that this was a mere excuse of the wily duke of Calabria for ridding himself of an Illyrian wife. Bohemond is said to have been called after a giant of romance; but the giant has not as yet transpired, and may have been, after all, a Slavonic divinity. Bohemond, or Boemondo, as Tasso calls him, was the Ulysses of the first Crusade, and left a grandson namesake.

Theodorus and Theodora are answered by Bogdan and Bogdana, both spelt with h in Bohemia—Bohdan, Bohdana, and in Illyria Bozidar, Bozidara; and, as has been already said, the Divine birth-night, Christmas, is commemorated by Slovak children being called Bozo. Bogohval is Thank God, Bogoboj, God’s battle, all names in use in Poland and the kindred nations before the general names of Europe displaced the native growth.

437The word does not answer to either Deus or God, but is related to the Sanscrit bhagas, destiny.

The word ljube, Love, is rather a favourite in the affectionate Slavonic nomenclature. At the outset of Bohemian history we come on the beautiful legend of Queen Libussa, or the darling. She succeeded her father in 618, governed alone for fourteen years, then, finding her people discontented, sought the wisest man in her domains for a husband, and found him, like Cincinnatus, at the plough, when he not only retained his homely cloak, iron table, and bark sandals, as marks of his origin, but bade them be produced at all future royal elections. His name, Przemysl, or the thoughtful, was continued in his line, though chroniclers cut its dreadful knot of consonants by calling it Premislaus and the next ensuing namesake Germanized himself as Ottokar. He was afterwards elected king of Poland, where the name was used, with the feminine Przemyslava.

Russia has the feminine Ljubov, Love, fondly termed Lubuika, and, in families where French is spoken, called Aimée, though this more properly translates Ljubka and Ljubnia. The Slovaks have Ljuboslav and its feminine, and the Polish Lubomirsky is Peace-loving. The Russian Ljubov is chiefly used in allusion to the Christian grace of love; and Faith, or Vjera, and Hope, Nadezna, are both, likewise, very popular at the present day, the latter usually Frenchified into Nadine; while the Serbs have Nada, or Nadan.

The Slaves of Rugen had a terrible deity called Sviatovid, or the luminous, who was considered to answer to Mars, or Tyr, and had a temple at Acron, and an image with seven heads, which must have much resembled Indian idols. A white horse was sacred to him, and was supposed to be ridden by him during the night, and to communicate auguries by the manner in which it leaped over lances that were arranged in its path. Human sacrifices were offered to this deity both in Rugen and Bohemia; and when his image was at length overthrown, St. Vitus, from the resemblance of sound, was confounded with him by the populace, and Svantovit, as they called both alike, was still the tutelary genius of the place. Svetozor, Dawn of light, and Svetlana, a Russian lady’s name still in use, are connected with light, the first syllable of his name.

Conjoined with Sviatovid, and lying on a purple bed in the temple in Rugen, was the seven-headed Rugevid, or Ranovid (whose name is explained by reference to the Sanscrit rana, blood-thirsty); and likewise Radegost, the god of hospitality, from rad, prosperous, and gose, a guest, the word so often encountered. Several names began with the first syllable—Rada, Radak, Radan, Radinko, Radmir, Radivoj, Radko, Radman, Radmil, Radoje, Radoslav; and the Illyrians have the hospitable name of Gostomil, or Guest love: indeed, gost forms the end of many Slavonic names, in accordance with the ready and courteous welcome always offered by this people.

Davor is another war god, whose name seems of very near kindred to Mavors, or Mars, and who left Davorinn, Davroslav, and Davroslava, as names.

Tikla was the old Slavonic goddess of good luck, and, being confounded 438with St. Thekla, made this latter name popular in Poland, Russia, and Hungary; and, in like manner, Zenovia, the huntress goddess, conduced to make Zenobia, and Zizi, its contraction, common in Russia.

The fire god was Znitch; and though he does not show any direct namesakes, yet there are sundry fire-names in his honour, such as the Slovak Vatroslav and Illyrian Ognoslav, both signifying fire glory. Possibly, too, the Russian Mitrofan may be connected with the old Persian mithras, or sacred fire; though in history it figures in Greek ecclesiastical guise, as the Patriarch Metrophanes.^[150]

Section III.—Warlike Names.

Few more Slavonic names remain to be mentioned, and these more for their correspondence with those of other races than for much intrinsic interest.

Very few are known beyond their own limits. Stanislav, or Camp glory, is the most universal, and is one of the very few found in the Roman calendar, which has two Polish saints thus named. The first, Stanislav Sczepanowski, Bishop of Cracow, was one of the many prelates of the eleventh century who had to fight the battle of Church against king, and he was happy in that his cause was that of morality as well as discipline. Having excommunicated King Boleslav for carrying off the wife of one of the nobles, he was murdered by the king in his own cathedral; and Gregory VII. being the reigning Pope, his martyrdom was an effectual seed of submission to the Church. The wretched king died by his own hand, and the bishop became a Slavonian Becket, was enshrined at Cracow, and thought to work miracles. His name was, of course, national, and was again canonized in the person of Stanislav Kostka, one of the early Jesuits who guided the reaction of Roman Catholicism in Poland. The name has even been used in France, chiefly for the sake of the father of the Polish queen of Louis XV., and afterwards from the influx of Poles after the partition of their kingdom.

English. French. Portuguese. Italian.

Stanislaus Stanislas Estanislau Stanislao

German. Bavarian. Polish. Illyrian.

Stanislav Stanes Stanislav Stanisav

Lettish. Stanisl Stach Stanko

Stanislavs Stanel Stas

Stachis Stanerl

439Much in the same spirit is the Russian Boris, from the old Slavonian borotj, to fight. It has never been uncommon in Muscovy, and belonged to the brother-in-law of Ivan the Terrible, Boris Goudenoff, who was regent for his imbecile nephew Feodor; and, after assassinating the hopeful younger brother, Dmitri, reigned as czar, till dethroned by a counterfeit Dmitri. Borka and Borinka are the contractions, and Borivor was the first Christian duke of Bohemia.

Bron, a weapon, forms Bronislav and Bronislava. Voj is the general Slavonic term for war, and is a very frequent termination. Vojtach, the Polish Vojciech, and Lithuanian Waitkus, all mean warrior.

It is a curious feature in nomenclature how strongly glory and fame are the leading notion of the entire race, whose national title of glory has had such a fall. Slav is an inevitable termination; voj almost as constantly used; and even the tenderest commencements are forced to love war, and to love fame. The old Russian Mstisslav glories in vengeance (mest), but is usually recorded as Mistislaus; Rostislav increases glory; Vratislav, Glowing glory, names not only the Wratislaus of history, but the city of Breslaw. The Slovak Vekoslav, and Vekoslava, are Eternal fame.

The two animals used in Slavonic names are warlike; Vuk, the wolf, and Bravac, the wild boar; but both these are very possibly adopted from the German Wulf and Eber.

Section IV.—Names of Might.

Boleje, strong or great, answers to the Teuton mer, and Boleslav is great glory. Boleslav Chrobry, the second Christian prince of Poland, was a devout savage and great conqueror, both in Russia and Bohemia. He was the first Pole to assume the title of king; and after his death, in 1025, there are many instances of his name in both Poland and Bohemia.

In this latter country it had, however, a far more sinister fame. Borivor and Ludmilla, the first Christian prince and princess of that duchy, had two grandsons, Boleslav and Vesteslav, or Venceslav, the first a heathen, the latter a Christian. Boleslav stirred up the pagan population against his brother, and murdered him while praying in church at Prague, on the 28th of September, 644, thus conferring on him the honour of a patron saint and centre of legends. The House of Luxemburg obtained the kingdom of Bohemia by marriage, and Venceslav was introduced among their appellations in the form of Wenzel; and the crazy and furious Bohemian king of that name sat for a few unhappy years on the imperial throne; but in spite of the odium of that memory, the name of good King Wenceslas, as we call it, held its ground, and contracts into Vacslav and Vaclav. Some say that it is crown glory, from vienice; others deduce the prefix from vest, the superlative of veliku, great, which furnished the Bulgarian Velika, Veleslav, Velimir.

440The familiar root that has been so often encountered in valeo, wield, &c., in the sense of power, gives the prefix vlad to various favourite Slavonic names. The Russian Vladimir, being of the race of Rurik, is sometimes seized upon as Waldemar; and, in fact, there is little difference in the sense of the first syllable. He is a great national saint, since it was his marriage with the Greek Princess Anna that obtained for the Byzantine Church her mighty Muscovite daughter; and in honour of him, Vladimir has been perpetually used in Russia, shortened into Volodia, and expanded into Volodinka by way of endearment.

The national saint of Hungary was Vladislav, who was the restorer of the faith that had almost faded away after the death of the sainted King Stephen, and was chosen as leader of a crusade, which was prevented by his death in 1095. His name, and that of his many votaries, have sorely puzzled Latin and Teutonic tongues; when not content, like the French, to term him St. Lancelot, his countrymen call themselves after him Laszlo, or Laczko, the Illyrians Lako, the Letts Wendis; but chroniclers vary between Uladislaus and Ladislaus in Hungary and Poland; and when the Angevin connection brought down a king from Hungary to revenge the death of his brother upon Giovanni of Naples, the Italians called him Ladislao; and as Ladislas we recognize the last native Hungarian king, brother-in-law to Charles V. Vladislavka is a feminine, contracting into Valeska, which is still borne by Polish young ladies. Vladivoj is another of the same class, and sve, all, with the verb vladati, to rule, has formed Vsevolad and Svevlad, All ruler, and Vseslav, All fame.

Possibly there may be some connection here with the deity Volos, Weles, or Veless, invoked under these names by the Slaves, Bohemians, and Russians, as witness of their oaths, and likewise as guardian of flocks. Possibly the Roman Pales may be the same deity under another form; but the name of Volos is still applied to shepherds, and comes, no doubt, from the Slavonic vlas, or Russian volos, the same word as wool.

The word mir at the end of Vladimir is somewhat doubtful. It may mean peace, or it may mean the world; and in like manner the Slovak Miroslav stands in doubt between world-fame or peaceful-fame.

Purvan, Purvançe, is the Bulgarian first, whether used in the sense of chief or of first-born does not appear; but, at any rate, bearing a most eastern sound with it.

We are familiar with the Russian ukase, from ukasat, to show forth; and kaze in Polish has the same sense of command. Kazimir is thus Command of peace, a noble title for a prince, and essentially national in Poland, where it was endeared by the fame of three of the best of the earlier sovereigns. It has the feminine Kasimira, and is one of the very few Slavonic names used by Teutons. Intermarriages introduced it among the German princes; and Johann Kasimir, a son of the Pfalzgraf of the Rhine, was a noted commander in the war of the Revolt of the Netherlands, and received the Garter from Queen Elizabeth. He was commonly called Prince Kasimir, and his namesakes 441spread in Germany; and either for the sake of the sound, or Polish sympathies, Casimir was somewhat fashionable in France.

French. Polish. Bohemian. Lettish.

Casimir Kazimir Kazimir Kasimirs

German. Kazimierz Kasche

Kasimir Kaschis

Kaschuk

Kol, council, formed Koloman, somewhat noted in early Slavonic history.

Jar, pronounced as beginning with y, means strength or firmness. Jaromir, Firm peace, was prince of Bohemia in 999. Jaropolk, firm government, was the last heathen grand prince of Muscovy; and this name, with Jaroslav, is very frequent in the early annals of the House of Rurik.

From lid, the people, (our old friends hleute and λαος,) came Ljudomir and Ludmilla, who was the first Christian duchess in Bohemia, and was strangled by her heathen daughter-in-law, Dragotina, the mother of Boleslav and Venceslav, leaving a sainted name much used among all Slavonian women, and called at home Lida and Lidiska; in Russia, Ljudmila. Lidvina was likewise Bohemian, from Vina, an old goddess.

Section V.—Names of Virtue.

Words signifying goodness are far from uncommon in this class of nomenclature. Dobry, good, has a worthy family. Dobrija, sometimes called Dobrowka, was the Bohemian princess whose marriage, like those of Clotilda, Bertha, and Anna, brought religion into her new country. Her husband, Miczslav, of Poland, had been born blind, but recovered his sight at seven years old. He had seven wives while still a heathen, but was told that he would have no children unless he began afresh with a Christian lady. He demanded the Czech princess. She brought St. Adalbert, of Prague, with her; and Mistislaus, as he is generally called in history, is counted as the first Polish Christian king, in the year 970. So national was the name, that the Poles altered Maria of Muscovy to Dobrija, on her marriage with Kasimir, their king. The other names of this commencement are Illyrian—Dobrogast, Dobroljub, Dobroslav, and its feminine Dobrovoj, Dobrvok, Dobrutin, and Dobrotina, Good guest, Good love, Good glory, Good war, Good wolf, and Beneficent.

Ssvätyj, holy, and polk, government, are the component parts of the old Russian Sviatopolk, often found among the early race of Rurik. Holy glory, Sviatoslav, was the inappropriate name of the son of the Christian princess Olga, the same who refused baptism, 442believing that all the converts were cowards, and that he should lose the support of the war gods and of his followers.

The Illyrian blag, good, makes Blagorod, Good birth, also, as usual, Blagovoj, Blagoslav, Blagodvor, Blagogost, and the contraction Blagoje.

Prav is upright, a connection, it may be, of probus, and it has formed the Slavonic Upravda, and the Illyrian Pravdoslav, Pravdoslava, Pravoje. It is, perhaps, the same with the Wend prib, which formed the name Pribislava. The Danes amalgamated the Wend pred into their own names as Predbiorn, or Preban.

Çast, or cest, is honour. The first letter, ç, should be pronounced z; it is rather a favourite with Poland and Bohemia. Çastibog exactly answers to the Greek Timotheus, as does Çastimir to the modern German Ehrenfried, very possibly a translation from it. Çastislav is the most popular form, like all else ending in slav, and has shortened into Çaslav, Çaislav, Cestislav, Ceslav.

Of the same sound is the first letter of çist, pure, whence Çistav and Çistislav. From tverd, firm, we have Tverdko, Tverdimir, Tverdislav.

Section VI.—Names of Affection.

The Slavonian nature has much in common with the Irish, and there is much of caressing and personal affection. Ljub, as has been seen, is a favourite element in names, and dragi, dear, does a considerable part. Dragomira, or DearDear peace, was the name of the heathen mother of Boleslav and Venceslav. Dragoslav, or dear glory, is Russian, and Poland and Bohemia have used Dragan, Draganka, Dragoj, Dragojila, Dragioila, Dragnja, Dragotin, Dragotinka, Dragilika, Dragija.

Duschinka is the tender epithet which, in Russia, a serf applies to her lady in addressing her. It is properly the diminutive of Duscha, happy, which is sometimes a Christian name in Russia, as well as in Illyria, where it is called Dusa and Dusica. Stastny is the Bohemian word for happy, and is sometimes used as a name. Blazena, meaning happy, in these tongues, is used as the South Slavonic equivalent for Beatrice.

Another word for love is mil. Mila and Milica are the feminines, meaning lovely, or amiable, Milan the masculine; but all these are now confounded with the numerous progeny of the Latin Æmilius. Mil is a favourite termination, and is found loving war and glory—Milovoj and Miloslav.

Cedoljub and Cedomil are both most loving names, the first half of the name signifying a child, so that they signify ‘child-love,’ or ‘filial affection.’

Brotherly love is likewise honoured as nowhere else, save in the Greek Philadelphus, which exactly renders Bratoljub, from brata, a word of the universal family likeness whence ἀδελφός and hermano 443are the only noted variations. Brajan and Bragican also belong to brotherhood.

Deva is a maiden, whence Devoslav and Devoslava, probably formed, or at least used, in honour of the Blessed Virgin.

Section VII.—Names from the Appearance.

A few names of extremely personal application exist, such as the Servian Mrena, white in the eyes, and Mladen, young, and the highly uncomplimentary Illyrian Smoljan and Smoljana, from smoljo, an overhanging nose, probably a continuation of the nickname of some favoured individual.

Krasan, beautiful, however, was used in names, as Krasimir, Krasislav, Krasomil, &c.; and zlata, golden, though once used in Zlatoust, as a literal translation of Chrysostomos, in other names may, it is hoped, be employed to denote beauty; or else Zlatoljub, with its contractions Zlatoje and Zlatko, would be a most avaricious name. Zlata, Zlatana, Zlatibor, and Zlatislav, are also used.

Tiho, silent, is a curious prefix. Tihomil, Silent love, and Tihomir, Silent peace, are clear enough; but Tihoslav, Silent glory, is a puzzling compound, probably only arising from the habit of ending everything with slav.

It is remarkable, however, that there is an entire absence of the names of complexion so common among the Kelts and Romans.

444

CONCLUSION. MODERN NOMENCLATURE.

It still remains to cast a passing glance over the countries of the European commonwealth, and observe the various classes of names that have prevailed in them. It is only possible to do this, with my present information, very broadly and generally. In fact, every province has its own peculiar nomenclature; and the more remote the place the more characteristic the names, and, therefore, the most curious are the least accessible. It is the tendency of diffused civilization to diminish variations, and up to a certain point, at least, to assimilate all to one model, and this process for many years affected the educated and aristocratic community, although latterly a desire for distinctiveness and pride in the individual peculiarities of race and family, have arisen; but, on the other hand, the class below, which used to be full of individualities, has now reached the imitative stage, and is rapidly laying aside all national and provincial characteristics, The European nobility, except where some old family name has been preserved as an heirloom, thus cease, about the sixteenth century, to bear national names; but all are on one level of John, Henry, Frederick, Charles, Louisa, &c., while the native names come to light among citizens and peasants; but now, while the gentleman looks back for the most distinctive name in his remote ancestry, and proudly bestows it on his child, the mechanic or labourer shrinks from the remark and misunderstanding that have followed his old traditional baptismal name, and calls his son by the leastleast remarkable one he can find, or by one culled from literature. These remarks apply chiefly to England, but also, in great measure, to the town population of France, and to all other places which are much affected by the universal fusion of national ideas and general intercourse of the present day.

Section I.—Greece.

Modern Greece has the most direct inheritance from the ancient, classical, and old Christian names. True, her population has undergone changes which leave but little of the proud old Ionian or Dorian blood; but her language has been victorious over the barbarous speech of her conquerors, and Latins and Bulgarians became Greek beneath her influence.

445The inhabitants of her peninsulas and islands are, then, with few exceptions, called by Greek names. The exceptions are, in the first place, in favour of the Hebrew names that are in universal use, not only the never-failing Joannes and Maria, but Isaakos, David, Elias, and others, for whom the Greek Church has inculcated more constant veneration than has the Latin. Next there are the few Latin names that were accepted by the Greeks during the existence of the Byzantine empire, and either through martyrs or by favourite sovereigns, recommended themselves to the love of posterity; but these are few in number, and Konstantinos is the only distinguished one. And, lastly, an extremely small proportion have been picked up by intercourse with the Western nations, but without taking root.

The mass of Greek names belongs to the class that I have called ‘Greek Christian,’ being those that were chiefly current in the years of persecution and martyrdom—some old hereditary ones from ancient time, others coined with the stamp of the Faith. These, with others expressive of favourite ideas, such as Macharios, Blessed, Sophia, Wisdom, Zoe, Life, were the staple of the Greeks until the modern revival brought forward the old heroic and historical names; and Achilles, Alkibiades, Themistokles, &c., are again in familiar use.

In a list of names used at the present day in the Ionian Islands, I find seventeen men and four women of the old historical and heroic class; the four ladies being Kalliope, Arethusa, Euphrosyne, and Aspasia; and, perhaps, Psyche and Olympias ought to be added to these: twenty-three male and nineteen female of the Christian Greek class: two Hebrew, i. e. Joannes and Jakobos, of men; three of women, Maria, Anna, and Martha. Paulos and Konstantinos, and perhaps Maura, alone represent the Latin, and Artorioos the Kelt, probably borrowed from some Englishman.

Surnames are inherited from the Latin nomina, and began earlier in Constantinople than anywhere else. They are divided between the patronymic, ending, as of old, in ides, the local, and the permanent nickname.

Section II.—Russia.

The European portion of the vast empire of Russia is nationally Slavonic, but much mixed with Tatar; and the high nobility is descended, at least according to tradition, from the Norsemen. The royal line is, through intermarriages, almost Germanized. The Church continues the faith, practice, and ritual of the Greek Church, but in the old Slavonic tongue, from which the spoken language has much deviated.

The Greek element greatly predominates in the nomenclature: native saints have contributed a few Slavonic specimens, and a very few inherited from the Norsemen occur; but the race of Rurik seem very quickly to have adopted Russian names. The Tatar population hardly contributes a Christian name to history, and the Germans 446almost always, on their marriage with the Russian imperial family, assumed native, i. e. Greek or Roman-Greek, names. The present fashions in nomenclature are, however, best explained in the following letter from an English lady residing in Russia:—

'Children (and grown-up persons in their own family) are, I may say, universally called by their diminutives. In society the Christian name and patronymic are made use of, and you seldom hear a person addressed by his family name, though he may be spoken of in the third person as “Romanoff,” or “Romanova” (surnames take the gender and number of their bearers), except by his superiors, such as a general to his young officers, &c.

'The patronymic is formed by the addition of vitch, or evitch, to the Christian name of a person’s father; as Constantine Petrovitch, Alexander Andréevitch, in the masculine; and of ovna, or evna, in the feminine, Olga Petrovna, Elizavetta Andréovna.

'I would call your attention to the error that is generally made in the newspapers, where these patronymics are spelt with a W, whereas they really are spelt and pronounced with a V.

'The diminutives can always be traced to the root, being derived from the first, or the accented syllable, of the full name, with the termination of a little fond syllable, sha, ia, inka, otchka, oushka; for instance, Mária, Másha, Mashinka—Olga, Olinka, Olitchka: Ian, John, Vanoushka, Vanka—Alexandre, Alexandra, Sasha, Sashinka. Not in one diminutive are there such glaring differences of spelling and sound, as Dick for Richard, Polly for Mary, Patty for Martha.

'Perhaps it is not superfluous to mention, that there are diminutives of reproach as well as of affection; if you scold Olga, she becomes Olka; Ivan, Vanka; and so on. This form, however, is seldom made use of by well-educated people, except in fun; though there are some who do not hesitate to make free use of it in their kitchens and nurseries, in a private sort of a manner. Among the lower orders, and especially in the country, it is not considered reproachful, but is the general form of appellation. You observe, that this is formed by the addition of ka to the principal syllable.

'I find, on attentive search in the “Monument of Faith,” a sort of devotional book of prayer and meditations applied to every day of the year, and with the names and a short-biography of each saint, that there are 822 men’s names and 204 women’s in the Russian calendar. Of these, you will be surprised to hear twelve only are really Slavonic. Unfortunately I am unable to inform you of their meanings, notwithstanding every inquiry among the few educated inhabitants of this little out-of-the-way town; but if ever I have an opportunity of seeing a real “Sclavonophile,” as searchers into Russian antiquities are called, I will not fail to ask about it. The names are as follows:—

‘1 Boris (m.), grand duke; murdered in 1015.

‘2 Gleb (m.), brother to Boris; murdered in 1016.

‘3 Vetcheslav (m.), Duke Chetsky.

‘4 Vladimir (m.), grand duke; baptized in 988 (1st Christian grand duke).

447‘5 Vsévolod (m.), duke; he changed his name to Gabriel when baptized; died in 1138.

‘6 Igor (m.), grand duke of Tchernigoff, 1147. (Norse.)

‘7 Razóomnik (m.); this name is taken from rázoom, which means sense, wisdom, and signifies a wise, sensible person.

‘8 Olga (f.), grand duchess, god-mother to Vladimir. She was the first Christian duchess. (Norse.)

‘9 Ludmilla (f.), god-mother to Vsevold, and martyred in the cause of Christianity.

‘10 Véra (f.), means faith.

‘11 Nadéjda (f.), hope.

‘12 Lubov, charity, love.

‘All the other names are of Greek, Latin, or Hebrew origin (with a very few exceptions, of which I will speak afterwards), and though they generally differ in termination, yet they are to be recognized instantly. I observe that in Greek names K is used, and not the sound of S, as in Kiril, Kiprian (Cyril, Cyprian). Also that Th takes the sound of F, as Féodore, Fomá (Theodore, Thomas). But the Th is represented by a letter distinct from that by which Ph or F are represented, the former being written Θ and the latter Ø, but both have exactly the same sound. U sometimes becomes V when used in the middle of names, as Evgenia (Eugenia), Evstafi (Eustace). B in many instances becomes V, as in Vasili (Basil), Varvara (Barbara), Varfolomey (Bartholomew).

‘The names of other origin are very few, viz.:—

'Avenir—Indian;

Arisa—Arabian;

Daria—Persian;

Sadof—Persian;

Erminigeld—Gothic.

‘German names, I may say, are not to be found in the Russo-Greek calendar.

‘When I say that there are 1026 Christian names in the calendar, I must explain that the number of saints is infinitely greater; there being from two or three to twenty or thirty every day of the year, the 29th of February included. There are sixty-one St. John’s days, thirty St. Peter’s, twenty-seven St. Féodor’s, twenty-four St. Alexandre’s, eighteen St. Gregory’s, sixteen St. Vasili’s, twelve St. André’s, ten St. Constantine’s, &c.

‘Sometimes the same saint is fêted two or three times in the year, but the different saints of the same name are very many. The female saints are in less number. Maria and Anna each occur ten times in the year, Euphrosinia six times, Féodora eight, and so on. In proportion to the number of saints so are the names of the population; so that Ivan is the most common; next, I think, comes Vasili, André, Pëtre, Nicolas (Nikolâï), Alexandre.

‘The lower orders have no idea of dates; they always reckon by the saints’ days. Ask a woman the age of her baby, she will say, “Well, I suppose it is about thirty weeks old.” “What is its name?” 448“Ivan.” “Which Ivan?” you ask, your calculations being defeated by the sixty-one St. Johns. “Why, the Ivan that ‘lives’ four days after dirty Prascóvia.” You then understand that the child must have been born about the 10th or 12th October, as the blessed saint is irreverently called “dirty Prascóvia” from falling on the 14th October, a very muddy time of the year in holy Russia.

‘One name only can be given at baptism, and it must be taken from the orthodox calendar. German, French, and English names not to be found there cannot be bestowed, nor can a surname, as in England.’

Section III.—Italy.

Italy, like Greece, has her classical inheritance. Her Lucio, Marco, Tito, Giulio, bear appellations borne by their Oscan or Sabine forefathers, even before Rome was a city; but mingled with this ancient stream there have been such an infinite number of other currents, that no land has undergone more influences, or has a more remarkable variety of personal names.

In the decay of the Roman Empire, and the growth of the Church, the old prænomina were a good deal set aside, by the heathen in his search for heroic-sounding titles, by the Christian in his veneration for the martyrs and saints of his Church. So the prosaic matter-of-fact three-storied name of the Roman was varied by importations, generally of Christian Greek, but now and then of heroic Greek; and as the Christian element predominated, the Hebrew apostle or prophet suggested the name of the young Roman. Barbarians, acquiring rights of citizenship, ceased to adopt the nomen of their patron, retaining appellations that a Scipio or Cato would have thought only fit to be led in a triumph, but still putting on a Latin finish and regarding them as Roman. But these—disgraceful as they are now regarded—were the days that stamped the Roman impress on the world, and marked the whole South of Europe with an indelible. print of Latin civilization and language.

Goths, Vandals, Gepidæ, and Lombards came on northern Italy one after the other; and the Lombards established a permanent kingdom that deeply influenced the north of the peninsula and Teutonized its nobility. The towns were less open to their influence; and Venice remained the Roman and partly Byzantine city she was from her source—using a language where her g is still the Greek ζ, and christening her children by the names of later Rome in its Christian days, only with the predominance of the national saint, Marco, the guardian of the city ever since his bones were stolen from Alexandria. The recurring ano, or ani, of Venetian surnames is the adoptive anus of Rome—republican Rome—whose truest representative the merchant city was till her shameful degradation and final ruin.

The Italian element in the population of Cisalpine Gaul continued far too strong for the Lombardic conquerors, and ere long had taught 449them its own language. If they wrote, it was in their best approach to classical Latin; when they spoke, it was in the dialectic Latin of the provinces farther broken by the inability of the victors to learn the case terminations, which were settled by making, in the first declensions, all the singular masculines end in o, and plurals in i, all the feminines in a and e; in the others, striking a balance and calling all ite. But though the speech was Latin, the Lombard kept his old Teutonic name—Adelgiso, Astolfo, or the like, and handed it on to his son, softened, indeed, but with its northern form clearly traceable. Time went on, and the Lombardic kingdom was fused into the Holy Roman Empire. The towns remained self-governing, self-protecting old Roman municipalities; the Lombardic nobles, if they had a strong mountain fastness, lived like eagles in their nests and were the terror of all; if they had but a small home on the plains, were forced to make terms with the citizens and accept their privileges as a favour. Thus came the Teuton element into the cities, and old Lombardic names were borne by Florentine and Milanese citizens. The Roman nomina so far were preserved that a whole family would be called after its founder, whether by his name or nickname. The noted man might be originally Giacopo, but called Lapo for short. His children were, collectively, Lapi; a single one would be either Bindo Lapo, or, latterly, dei Lapi, one of the Lapi. Sometimes office gave a surname, as Cancelliero, when the family became Cancellieri. One of these Cancellieri was twice married; and one of the wives being yclept Bianca, her children were called Bianchi; their half-brothers Neri, merely as the reverse; and thence arose the two famous party words of the Guelfs of Florence. Latterly, when these names in i were recognized as surnames, it was usual to christen a boy by the singular, and thus we have Pellegrino Pellegrini, Cavaliere Cavalieri, and many other like instances, familiar to the readers of Dante and of old Italian history. Dante’s own names—the first contracted from a Latin participle, the second the direct patronymic from his father—Alighiero, the Teutonic noble spear, form a fit instance of the mixed tongue, which he first reduced to the dignity of a written language. Those were its days of vigour and originality; of fresh name-coining from its own resources,—Gemma, Fiamma, Brancaleone, Vinciguerra, Cacciaguido—words not merely of commonplace tradition, but original invention.

Meantime southern Italy had been under other influences. Long remaining a province of the Eastern empire, Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily were the marauding ground of the Saracens, till the gallant Norman race of Hauteville came to their deliverance, and imposed on them a Norman-French royalty and nobility, with their strange compound of French and Northern names—Robert and Roger, Tancred and William, Ferabras and Drogo, the latter certainly Frank, as it belonged to an illegitimate son of Charlemagne. It was brought to England by Dru de Baladon, a follower of the Conqueror; and we find it again in Sir Drew Drury, the keeper of Mary of Scotland. It may be related to the Anglo-Saxon dry, a sorcerer, and dreist, the German skilful, but its derivation is uncertain.

450When the Norman influence waned, the Swabian power gave a few German names to the Two Sicilies, but was less influential than either the French in Naples or the Aragonese in Sicily, where the one strewed Carlo, the other Fernando and Alfonso.

All this time the Christian name was the prominent one, more used and esteemed than titles throughout all ranks. Men and women would be simply spoken of as Giovanni or Beatrice, or more often, by contractions, Vanni or Bice, Massuccio, or Cecca, now and then with Ser or Monna (signor or madonna) added as titles of respect.

All the time, what may be called the Roman Catholic influence on nomenclature was growing in its great centre. The city of martyrs was filled with churches where the remains of the saint gave the title, and was thought to give the sanctity, and these suggested names to natives and pilgrims alike. Cecilia, Sebastiano, Lucia, &c., and more than can be enumerated, won their popularity from owning a church that served as a station in the pilgrimages, and thus influenced the world. Relics brought to Rome, and then bestowed as a gift upon princes, carried their saints' epithets far and wide; and when Constantinople was in her decay, and purchased the aid of Western sovereigns by gifts of her sacred stores, the Greek and Eastern saints had their names widely diffused, as Anna, Adriano, &c. Moreover, the feasts of different events in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary began to tell on Italian names, and Annunciata, and later, Assunta, were the produce.

Francesco is the most universal name of native Italian fabrication. It is one of what may be called the names spread by religious orders, all of which originate in Italy; Benedetto, oldest of all and universal in Romanist lands; Augustino, never very popular; Domenico, not uncommon in Italy, but most used in gloomy Spain; Francesco and Clara, both really universal in Protestant as well as Roman Catholic lands.

The revival of classical literature, produced partly by the influx of Greek scholars after the fall of Constantinople, partly by the vigour of Boccaccio and Petrarch, brought a classical influence to bear on Italy, of which her names are more redolent than those elsewhere. Emilia, Virgilio, Olimpia, Ercole, Fabrizio, all arose and flourished in Italy, and have never since been dropped, though the Romanist influence has gone on growing, and others have affected parts of the country.

Romance had some influence—Orlando, Oliviero, Rinaldo, Ruggiero—and the more remote Lancilotto, Ginevra, Isolda, Tristano, all became popular through literature; and the great manufacture of Italian novels, no doubt, tended to keep others in vogue.

The French and German wars in Italy, the erection of the Lombardic republics into little tyrannical duchies, and the Spanish conquest of Naples, all tended to destroy much of the individuality of Italian nomenclature, and reduce that of the historical characters to the general European level. And this tendency has increased rather than diminished, as Spain devoured the North, and ‘balance 451of power’ struggled for Austrian interests, and established Bourbon kingdoms and duchies. The old national names were not utterly discarded; there was still a Lombardic flavour in the North, a classical one in the old cities, a Norman one in Sicily; but the favourite commonplace names predominated in the noblesse, and titles began to conceal them. Moreover, the women were all Maria, and many of the men likewise; and the same rule at present holds good, though of late the favourites have become Filomena and Concetta—in honour, the one of the new saint, the other of the new dogma of Rome.

The House of Savoy, which is just now the hope of Italy, always had its own peculiar class of names—Humbert, Amé, Filiberto, Emanuele, Vittore, and these are likely to become the most popular in liberal Italy.

Section IV.—Spain.

Spain has many peculiarities of her own, to which I would fain do greater justice than is in my power. Celtiberian at first, she seems to have become entirely Latin, except in those perplexing Basque provinces, where the language remains a riddle to philologists. One Spanish name is claimed by Zamacola as Basque, i. e. Muño, with its feminine Muña, or Munila; and for want of a more satisfactory history, one is inclined to suppose that Gaston, or Gastone, must be likewise Basque. It first comes to light as Gascon among the counts of Foix and Béarn, from whom the son of Henri IV. derived it, and made it French.

Rome Latinized the Spanish speech for ever, and left many an old Latin name, which, however, went on chiefly among the lower orders, while the Suevi and the Goths ruled as nobles and kings, bringing with them their Teutonic names, to be softened down to the dignified Romance tongue, which took the Latin accusative for its stately plurals in os and es. It is likely that the Latin element was working upwards at the time of the Mahometan conquest, since the traitor Julian, his daughter Florinda, the first patriot king, Pelayo, all have classically derived names; and some of these occur in the early royal pedigrees of the Asturias and Navarre, and the lords of Biscay, as these small mountain territories proclaimed their freedom and Christianity. Here we find Sancho (Sanctus), Eneco (Ignatius), Lope, Manse, Fortunio, Adoncia, Teresa, Felicia, all undoubtedly Latin and Greek; and curiously, too, here are the first instances of double Christian names, probably the remnant of the Latin style. Eneco Aristo, Inigo Sancho, Garcias Sancho, and the like, are frequent before the year 1000; and the Cid’s enemy, Lain Calvo, is supposed to be Flavius Calvus. The Goths, however, left a far stronger impression on the nomenclature than on the language. Alfonso, Fernando, Rodrigo, Berengario, Fruela, Ramiro, Ermesinda, are undoubtedly theirs; but other very early names continue extremely doubtful, such as Ximen and Ximena, Urraca, Elvira, or Gelvira, 452Alvaro, Bermudo, Ordoño, Velasquita, all appearing in the earliest days of the little Christian kingdoms, though not in the palmy times of the Gothic monarchy. These names have been already mentioned, with the derivations to which they may possibly belong; but they are far from being satisfactorily accounted for. The simple patronymic ez was in constant use, and formed many surnames.

As the five kingdoms expanded and came into greater intercourse with Europe, the more remarkable names gradually were discarded; but Alfonso, Fernando, Rodrigo, Alvar, Gonzalo, were still national, and the two first constantly royal, till the House of Trastamare brought Enrique and Juan into fashion in Castille. The favourite saint was James the Great, or, more truly, Santiago de Compostella, in honour of whom Diego and his son Diaz are to be found in very early times. Maria, too, seems to have been in use in Spain sooner than elsewhere, and Pedro was in high favour in the fourteenth century, as it has continued ever since.

Aragon and Portugal had variations from the Castillian standard of language; and Portugal now claims to have a distinct tongue, chiefly distinguished by the absence of the Moorish guttural; and in nomenclature, by the close adherence to classic spelling, and by the terminations which would in Spanish be in on, or un, being in aŏ, the contraction of nho. Aragonese has been absorbed in Castillian, and Catalan is only considered as a dialect.

After Aragon and Castille had become united, and, crushing the Moors and devouring Navarre, were a grand European power, their sovereigns lost all their nationality. French, or rather Flemish, Charles, and Greek Philip, translated as Carlo and Felipe, reigned on their throne as the House of Austria, while the native Fernando went off to be the German Ferdinand. Isabel, the Spanish version of either Jezebel, or Elizabeth, did retain her popularity, but hardly in equal measure with the universal Maria; and as the Inquisition Romanized the national mind more and more, the attribute names of Mercedes and Dolores, and even the idolatrous Pilar, and Guadalupe, from a famous shrine, were invented. These were given in conjunction with Maria, and used for convenience' sake. Literary names seem to have been few or none, and the saint, or rather the Romanist, nomenclature, was more unmitigated in Spain and her great western colonies than anywhere else; even in Italy, where the classics and romance always exerted their power. In the Spanish colonies, even divine names are used, without an idea of profanity.

The use of the Christian name in speech has, however, never been dropped, even under the French influence of the Bourbon monarchy; and Don Martin, Doña Luisa, &c., would still be the proper title of every Spanish gentleman or lady.

The Spanish names that have spread most extensively have been Fernando in Germany, Iñigo and Teresa throughout all Roman Catholic countries, for the sake of the two Spanish saints who revived their old half-forgotten sound.

453

Section V.—France.

France, the most influential of European countries for evil or for good, can hardly be properly spoken of as one, in nation or language. Yet that one dialect of hers that has contrived to be the most universal tongue of Europe, that character, which by its vivacity and earnestness, and, perhaps, above all, by its hard, rigid consistency, has impressed its ideas on all other nations, and too often dragged them in its wake, though both only belonging to a fraction of the population, are still, in general estimation, the French, and their importance undeniable. Dislike, despise, struggle as we will, we are still influenced, through imitation and vanity, and the deference of the weaker majority, in matters of conventional taste.

Old Gaul had its brave Keltic inhabitants, and its race in Brittany, unsubdued by even Rome, were only united to the rest of the country by the marriage of their heiress, only subdued by gradual legalized tampering with their privileges. Even in the Keltic province, however, genuine Keltic names are nearly gone; though Hervé, Guennolé, Yvain, Arzur, are still found in their catalogues; and in France, Généviève, by her protection of Paris, left her ancient name for perpetual honour and imitation.

The Roman overflow came early and lasted long; it left a language and manners strongly impressed, and the names seem to have been according to Latin forms and rules. Dionysius, Pothinus, Martinus, Hilarius, are all found among the Gauls in the end of the Roman sway; and when the Franks had burst over the country and held the north of the Loire, whenever a Gaul comes to the surface, he is called by a Roman name—Gregorius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Germanus, Eligius.

Southern Gaul was, indeed, never Frank. The cities were Roman municipalities, shut their gates, and took what care of themselves they could; while the Hlodvehs and Meervehs, the Hilperics, and Hildeberts ravaged over the stony country, which still called itself Provincia. And there, though Burgundians on the east, and Goths from the Pyrenees, gradually contrived to erect little dukedoms and counties, and hold them under the empire established by Charlemagne, the country was still peopled by the Romanized Gaul, and the Langue d’oc was spoken and sung. This was the centre of the softened classic names, Yolande and Constance, Alienor and Delphine, while the legends of St. Marthe and of the Martyrs of Lyons supplied provincial saints. The rich literature, chiefly of amatory songs, died away, and the current remains of the language are now unwritten, falling further and further into patois, and varying more from one another. One of its curious peculiarities is to make o a feminine termination; Dido is there short for Marguerite, Zino for Theresine, &c.

A great number of French surnames are still Roman, such as Chauvin (Calvinus), Godon (Claudius), Marat, Salvin, and many 454more, showing that Latin nomenclature must long have been prevalent among the mass of the people, though as history is only concerned with the court, we hear chiefly of the Franks around the unsteady thrones of Neustria and Austrasia. The High German of these kingdoms, as used by the Meerwings, was extremely harsh; Hlodveh and Hlodhild, Hlother and Hlodvald, were their rough legacies; but, despised as was the name and cheap the blood of the Roman among them, his civilization was conquering his victors; and when the Karlings, with their middle class cultivation, subdued the effete line of Meerveh, they spoke Latin as freely as Frankish, and the names they bore had softened; Ludovicus and Lotharius, Carolus and Emma in Latin, or in German, Ludwe and Lothar, Karl and Emme. And now, among the many saints that were fostered by the religious government and missionary spirit of Frankland, arose the founders of the chief stock names of Europe—Robert, Richard, Henry, Williaume, Walther, Bernard, Bertram, Eberhard, and the like.

When, in the next generation, Germany, Lorraine, and France fell apart, the latter country was beginning to speak the Langue d’oui, retaining the Latin spelling, but disregarding it in speech, as though the scholar had written correctly, but the speaker had disregarded the declension, and dropped the case endings alike of Latin and Teutonic. And so Karl was Charles, and Lodwe Louis, long before the counts of Paris, with their assimilation of the Cymric Hu to the Teuton Hugur, had thrust the Karlings down into Lorraine, and commenced the true French dynasty in their small territory between the Seine and Loire.

Already had the Northmen settled themselves in Neustria, and, taking the broken Frank names and mangled Latin speech for badges of civilization and Christianity, had made them their own, and infused such vigour into the French people, that from that moment their national character and literature begin to develop.

Then it was that France exercised a genuine and honourable leadership of Europe. Her language being the briefest form of Latin, was, perhaps, the most readily understood of the broken Romance dialects; and though Rome had the headship of the Church, and Germany the nominal empire of the West, France had the moral chieftainship.

The Pope did but sanction the Crusades; it was France that planned them. Frenchmen were the connecting link between the Lorrainer Godfrey, the Norman Robert, the Sicilian Tancred, the Provençal Raymond, the Flemish Baldwin. The kingdom of Jerusalem, though founded by the Lorrainer, was essentially French; the religious orders of knighthood were chiefly French; the whole idea and language of chivalry were French; and perhaps rightly, for France has at times shown that rare and noble spirit that can exalt a man for his personal qualities, instead of his rank, even in his own lifetime. The nation that could appreciate its St. Bernard, its Du Guesclin, its Bayard, deserved, while that temper was in it, to be a leader of the civilized world.

England was in these earlier days regarded as a foreign and semi-barbarous 455realm held by a French duke or count, while southern France was divided into independent fiefs of the empire. The names began to be affected by reverence for saints, and fast included more and more of the specially popular patrons, such as Jean, Jaques, Simon, Philippe. They became common to all the lands that felt the central crusading impulse, and the daughters of French princes, Alix, Matilde, the Provençal Constance, Alienor, Isabel, Marguérite, were married into all parts of Europe, and introduced their names into their new countries, often backed up by legends of their patrons.

Normandy lapsed to France through King John’s crime and weakness, and the persecution of the Albigenses, and the narrower views of the popes, changed the Crusades to a mere conquest of the Langue d’oc by the Langue d’oui, completed by the marriages of the brothers of St. Louis; and though Provence continued a fief of the empire, and the property of the Angevin kings of Naples, yet their French royal blood united it more closely to the central kingdom, and the transplanting of the papal court to Avignon, gave a French tinge to the cardinalate which it only recovered from at the expense of the Great Schism.

Philippe le Bel was the last able sovereign of France of the vigorous early middle ages; but the brilliant character of the nobility still carried men’s minds captive, and influenced the English even through the century of deadly wars that followed the accession of the House of Valois, and ended by leaving Louis XI. king of the entire French soil.

The ensuing century was that when the influence of France on other nations was at the lowest ebb. Exhausting herself first by attacks on Italy, and then by her savage civil wars, she required all the ability of Henri IV. and of Richelieu to rouse her from her depression, and make her be respected among the nations. Meantime, her nomenclature had varied little from the original set of names in use in the tenth century; dropping a few obsolete ones, taking up a few saintly ones, recommended by fresh relics, and occasionally choosing a romantic one, but very scantily; François was her only notable adoption. The habit of making feminines to male names seems to have spread in France about the eighteenth century, rather narrowing than widening the choice. Jeanne seems to have been the first to undergo this treatment; Philippine was not long after, then Jacqueline, and, indeed, it may have been the habit—as it is still among the peasantry of the South—always to give the father’s name to the eldest child, putting a feminine to it for a girl.

With the cinque-cento came a few names of literature, of which Diane was the most permanent; and the Huguenots made extensive use of Scripture names—Isaac, Gédéon, Benjamin, and many more; but the Christian name was quickly falling out of fashion. People were, of course, christened, but it is often difficult to discover their names. The old habit of addressing the knight as Sire Jehan, or Sire Pierre, and speaking of him as le Beau Sieur, had been entirely dropped. Even his surname was often out of sight, and he was called after some estate—as le Sieur Pierre Terrail was to the whole world Chevalier 456Bayard. Nay, even in the signature, the Christian name was omitted, unless from some very urgent need of distinction. Henri de Lorraine, eldest son of the duke of Guise, signs himself Le Guisard in a letter to the Dauphin Henri, son of François I. Married ladies wrote themselves by their maiden joined to their married title, and scarcely were even little children in the higher orders called by one of the many names that it had become the custom to bestow on them, in hopes of conciliating as many saints and as many sponsors as possible,—sometimes a whole city, as when the Fronde-born son of Madame de Longueville had all Paris for his godmother, and was baptized Charles Paris.

Now and then, however, literature, chiefly that of the ponderous romances of the Scudéry school, influenced a name, as Athenaïs or Sylvie; but, in general, these magnificent appellations were more used as sobriquets under which to draw up characters of acquaintances than really given to children. Esther is, however, said to have been much promoted by the tragedy of Racine.

The Bourbons, with their many faults, have had two true kings of men among them—Henri IV. and Louis XIV.—men with greatness enough to stamp the Bourbon defects where their greatness left no likeness.

There is something very significant in the fact, that these were the days when it was fashionable to forget the simple baptismal name. There was little distinction in it, if it had been remembered; Louis or Marie always formed part of it, with half-a-dozen others besides. As to the populace, nobody knows anything of them under Louis XIV.: they were ground down to nothing.

The lower depth, under Louis XV., brought a reaction of simplicity; but it was the simplicity of casting off all trammels—the classicalism of the Encyclopædists. Christian names are mentioned again, and were chosen much for literary association. Emile and Julie, for the sake of Rousseau; and, from Roman history, Jules and Camille, and many another, clipped down to that shortened form by which France always appropriated the words of other nations, and often taught us the same practice.

The Revolution stripped every one down to their genuine two names, and woe to the owners of those which bore an aristocratic sound, or even meaning. Thenceforth French nomenclature, among the educated classes and those whom they influence, has been pretty much a matter of taste. Devotion, where it exists, is satisfied by the insertion of Marie, and anything that happens to be in vogue is added to it. Josephine flourished much in the first Bonaparté days; but Napoléon was too imperial, too peculiar, to be given without special warrant from its owner; nor are politically-given names numerous: there are more taken from popular novels or dramas, or merely from their sound. Zephyrine, Coralie, Zaidée, Zénobie, Malvine, Séraphine, prevail not only among the ladies, but among the maid-servants of Paris; and men have, latterly, been fancifully named by appellations brought in from other countries, never native to France—Gustave, Alfred, Ernest, Oswald, &c. Moreover, the tendency to denude words 457of their final syllable is being given up. The names in us and in a are let alone, in spelling, at least; and some of our feminine English contractions, such as Fanny, have been absolutely admitted.

All this, however, very little affects the peasantry, or the provinces. Patron saints and hereditary family names, contracted to the utmost, are still used there; and a rich harvest might be gathered by comparison of the forms in Keltic, Latin, Gascon, or German, in France.

Section VI.—Great Britain.

The waning space demands brevity; otherwise, the appellations of our own countrymen and women are a study in themselves; but they must here be treated of in general terms, rather than in detail.

The Keltic inhabitants of the two islands bore names that their descendants have, in many instances, never ceased to bear and to cherish. The Gael of Ireland and Scotland have always had their Niel and Brighd, their Fergus and Angus; Aodh, Ardh, and Bryan, Eachan, Conan, the most ancient of all traditional names, continuing without interval on the same soil, excepting a few of the more favoured Greek and old Italian.

The Cymry, in their western mountains, have a few equally permanent. Caradoc, Bronwen, Arianwen, Llud, and the many forms of Gwen, are extremely ancient, and have never dropped into disuse. In both branches of the race there was a large mass of poetical and heroic myth to endear these appellations to the people; and it is one of the peculiar features of our islands to be more susceptible than any other nation to these influences on nomenclature. Is it from the under-current of the imaginative Kelt that this tendency has been derived?

Rome held England for four hundred years; and though Welsh survived her grasp and retained its Keltic character, instead of becoming a Romance tongue, it was considerably imbued with Latin phraseology; and the assumption of Latin names by the British princes, with the assimilation of their own, has left a peculiar class of Welsh classic names not to be paralleled elsewhere, except, perhaps, in Wallachia. Cystenian, Elin, Emrys, Iolo, Aneurin, Ermin, Gruffydd, Kay, are of these; and there are many more, such as March, Tristrem, Einiawn, Geraint, which lie in doubt between the classic and the Cymric, and are, probably, originally the latter, but assimilated to those of their Latin models and masters. It was these Romanized Kelts who supplied the few martyrs and many saints of Britain; whose Albanus, Aaron, and Julius left their foreign names to British love, and whose Patricius founded the glorious missionary Church of Ireland, and made his name the national one. His pupils, Brighde and Columba, made theirs almost equally venerated, though none of these saintly titles were, at first, adopted in the Gadhaelic 458Churches without the reverent prefix Gille, or Mael, which are compounded with all the favourite saintly names of the Keltic calendar.

Again, the semi-Roman Kelts were the origin of the Knights of the Round Table. Arthur’s own name, though thorough Keltic, is claimed by Greek. Lancelot is probably a French version of the Latin translation of Maelgwn; and the traces of Latin are here and there visible in the nomenclature of the brave men who, no doubt, aimed rather at being Roman citizens than mediæval knights.

The great Low German influx made our island English, and brought our veritable national names. An immense variety existed among the Anglo-Saxons, consisting of different combinations, generally with some favourite prefix, in each family—Sige, Æthel, Ead, Hilde, Cuth, Ælf, and the terminations, generally, beorht, red, volf, veald, frith, or, for women, thrythe, hilde, gifu, or burh. The like were in use in the Low German settlements on the Continent, especially in Holland and Friesland.

Christianity, slowly spreading through the agency of the Roman Church on the one hand and the Keltic on the other, did not set aside the old names. It set its seal of sanctity on a few which have become our genuine national and native ones. Eadward, Eadmund, Eadwine, Wilfrith, Æadgifu, Æthelthryth, Mildthryth, Osveald, and Osmund, have been the most enduring of these; and Æthelbyrht we sent out to Germany, to come back to us as Albert.

The remains of the Danish invasions are traceable rather in surnames than Christian names. The permanent ones left by them were chiefly in insular Scotland and Ireland. Torquil, Somerled, Ivor, Ronald, Halbert, are Scottish relics of the invaders; and in Ireland, Amlaidh, Redmond, Ulick.

But it was the Normans, Norsemen in a French dress, that brought us the French rather than Frank names that are most common with us. Among the thirty kings who have reigned since the Conquest, there have been ten Christian names, and of these but two are Saxon English, three are Norman Frank, two French Hebrew, one French Greek, one French, one Anglicized German Greek. Strictly speaking, Richard is Saxon, and began with a native English saint; but it was its adoption by Normans that made it popular after the Conquest; and it came in company with William, Henry, Robert, Walter, Gilbert, all in perpetual use ever since. Alberic, Bertram, Baldwin, Randolf, Roger, Herbert, Hubert, Reginald, Hugh, Norman, Nigel, and many others less universally kept up, came at the same time; and Adelheid and Mathilda were imported by the ladies; but, in general, there were more men’s names than women’s then planted, probably on account of William’s policy of marrying Normans to English women.

Scripture names were very few. There are only two Johns in Domesday Book, and one is a Dane; but the saints were beginning to be somewhat followed; Eustace was predominant; Cecily, Lucy, Agnes, Constance, were already in use; and in the migration, Brittany contributed Tiffany, in honour of the Epiphany. At the same time 459she sent us her native Alan, Brian, and Aveline; and vernacular French gave Aimée and afterwards Algernon.

It was a time of contractions. Between English and French, names were oddly twisted; Alberic into Aubrey, Randolf into Ralph, Ethelthryth into Awdry, Eadgifu into Edith, Mathilda into Maude, Adelheid into Alice.

Saint and Scripture names seem to have been promoted by the crusading impulse, but proceeded slowly. The Angevins brought us the French Geoffrey and Fulk, and their Provençal marriages bestowed on us the Provençal version of Helena—Eleanor, as we have learnt to call their Alienor, in addition to the old Cymric form Elayne. Thence, too, came Isabel, together with Blanche, Beatrice, and other soft names current in poetical Provence. Jehan, as it was called when Lackland bore it, and its feminine Jehanne, seem to have been likewise introductions of our Aquitanian queen.

The Lowland Scots had been much influenced by the Anglo-Saxons, whose tongue prevailed throughout the Lothians; and after the fall of Macbeth, and the marriage of Malcolm Ceanmore, English names were much adopted in Scotland. Cuthbert has been the most lasting of the old Northumbrian class. The good Queen Margaret, and her sister Christian, owed their Greek names, without a doubt, to their foreign birth and Hungarian mother, and these, with Alexander, Euphemia, and George, forthwith took root in Scotland, and became national. Probably Margaret likewise brought the habit, then more eastern than western, of using saintly names, for her son was David; and from this time seems to have begun the fashion of using an equivalent for the Keltic name. David itself, beloved for the sake of the good king, is the equivalent of Dathi, a name borne by an Irish king before the Scottish migration. David I., nearly related to the Empress Maude, and owning the earldom of Northumbria in right of his wife, was almost an English baron; and the intercourse with England during his reign and those of his five successors, made the Lowland nobles almost one with the Northumbrian barons, and carried sundry Norman names across the border, where they became more at home than even in England; such as Alan, Walter, Norman, Nigel, and Robert.

Henry II. was taking advantage of the earl of Pembroke’s expedition to Ireland, and the English Pale was established, bringing with it to Erin the favourite Norman names, to be worn by the newly-implanted nobles, and Iricized gradually with their owners. Cicely became Sheelah; Margaret, Mairgreg; Edward, Eudbaird; and, on the other hand, the Irish dressed themselves for civilization by taking English names. Finghin turned to Florence, and Ruadh to Roderick, &c.

Henry III. had been made something like an Englishman by his father’s loss of Normandy; and in his veneration for English saints, he called his sons after the two royal saints most beloved in England, Edward and Edmund; and the death of the elder children of Edward I. having brought the latter a second time to the throne, it was thenceforth in honour. Thomas owed its popularity to Becket, who 460was so christened from his birth on the feast of the Apostle, St. Thomas, and, in effect, saintly names were becoming more and more the fashion. Mary was beginning to be esteemed as the most honourable one a woman could bear; and legends in quaint metrical English rendered Agnes, Barbara, Katharine, Margaret, and Cecily well known and in constant use.

The romances of chivalry began to have their influence. Lionel and Roland, Tristram, Ysolda, Lancelot, and Guenever, were all the produce of the revival of the tales of Arthur’s court, arrayed in their feudal and chivalrous dress, and other romances contributed a few. Diggory is a highly romantic name, derived from an old metrical tale of a knight, properly called D'Egaré, the wanderer, or the almost lost, one of the many versions of the story of the father and unknown son. Esclairmonde came out of Huon de Bourdeaux; Lillias, such a favourite in Scotland, came out of the tale of Sir Eger, Sir Graham, and Sir Graysteel; Lillian out of the story of Roswal and Lillian; and Grizel began to flourish from the time Chaucer made her patience known.

The Scots, by their alliance with France, were led to import French terminations, such as the diminutives Janet and Annot; also the foreign Cosmo, and perhaps likewise Esmé.

Meantime we obtained fresh importations from abroad. Anne came with the Queen of Richard II.; Elizabeth from the German connections of Elizabeth Woodville’s mother, Jaquetta of Luxemburg; Gertrude was taken from Germany; Francis and Frances caught from France; and Arthur was revived for his eldest son by the first Tudor; Jane instead of Joan began, too, in the Tudor times.

But when the Reformation came, the whole system of nomenclature received a sudden shock. Patron saints were thrown to the winds; and though many families adhered to the hereditary habits, others took entirely new fashions. Then, Camden says, began the fashion of giving surnames as Christian names; as with Guildford Dudley, Egremont Ratcliffe, Douglas Sheffield; and in Ireland, Sidney, as a girl’s name, in honour of the lord deputy, Sir Henry, the father of Sir Philip, from whom, on the other hand, Sydney became a common English boy’s name.

Then, likewise, the classical taste came forth, and bestowed all manner of fanciful varieties; Homer, Virgil, Horatius, Lalage, Cassandra, Diana, Virginia, Julius, &c., &c., all are found from this time forward; and here and there, owing to some ancestor of high worth, specimens have been handed on in families.

The more pious betook themselves to abstract qualities; Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence and Patience, Modesty, Love, Gift, Temperance, Mercy, all of which, even to the present day, sometimes are used, but chiefly by the peasantry, or in old Nonconformist families.

Between the dates 1500 and 1600 began the full employment of Scripture names, chosen often by opening the Bible at haphazard, and taking the first name that presented itself, sometimes, however, by juster admiration of the character. Thus began our use of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Rachel, Joseph, Benjamin, 461Josiah, Gershom, Gamaliel, &c.; and others more quaint and peculiar. The Puritan clergy absolutely objected to giving unedifying names. A minister was cited before Archbishop Whitgift for refusing to christen a child Richard. The Bible was ransacked for uncommon names only found in the genealogies, and parish registers show the strangest varieties, such as Hope still, Dust and Ashes, Thankful, Repent, Accepted, Hold-the-Truth, &c. These were chiefly given at the baptisms in the latter days of Elizabeth and the reign of James I. They were the real, not assumed, names of the Ironsides, but they were not perpetuated. A man called Fight-against-Sin would have too much pity for his son to transmit such a name to him. Original is, however, a family name still handed on in Lincolnshire. Probably it was at first Original Sin. The most curious varieties of names were certainly used in the 17th century. The register of the scholars admitted to Merchant Taylors' school between 1562 and 1699 shows Isebrand, Jasper, Jermyn, Polydore, Cæsar, Olyffe, Erasmus, Esme, Ursein, Innocent, Praise, Polycarpe, Tryamour, and a Sacheverell, Filgate, admitted in 1673.

Comparatively few of these Puritan names were used in Scotland; but several were for sound’s sake adopted in Ireland as equivalents; Jeremiah for Diarmaid; Timothy for Tadhgh; Grace for Graine.

Charles was first made popular through loyalty to King Charles I., who had received it in the vain hope that it would be more fortunate than the hereditary James, itself brought into Scotland seven generations back by a vow of Annaple Drummond, mother of the first unfortunate James. English registers very scantily show either Charles or James before the Stuart days, but they have ever since been extremely popular. Henrietta, brought by the French queen, speedily became popular, and with Frances, Lucy, Mary, Anne, Catherine, and Elizabeth, seem to have been predominant among the ladies; but all were contracted, as Harriet, Fanny, Molly, Nanny, Kitty, Betty. The French suppression of the Christian name considerably affected the taste of the Restoration; noblemen dropped it out of their signature; the knight’s wife discarded it with the prefix Dame; married daughters and sisters were mentioned by the surname only; young spinsters foolishly adopted Miss with the surname instead of Mistress with the Christian; but the loss was not so universal as in France, for custom still retained the old titles of knights and of the daughters and younger sons of the higher ranks of the nobility. The usual fashion was, in imitation of the French, for ladies to call themselves and be addressed in poetry by some of the Arcadian or romantic terms, a few of which have crept into nomenclature; Amanda, Ophelia, Aspasia, Cordelia, Phyllis, Chloe, Sylvia, and the like.

The love of a finish in a was coming in with Queen Anne’s Augustan age. The soft e, affectionate ie or y, that had been natural to our tongues ever since they had been smoothed by Norman-French, was twisted up into an Italian ia: Alice must needs be Alicia; Lettice, Letitia; Cecily, Cecilia; Olive, Olivia; Lucy, Lucinda; and no heroine could be deemed worthy of figuring in narrative without 462a flourish at the end of her name. Good Queen Anne herself had an a tacked on to make her ‘Great Anna’; Queen Bess must needs be Great Eliza; and Mary was erected into Maria; Nassau had lately been invented for William III.’s godchildren of both sexes; and Anne, after French precedent, made masculine for his successor’s godsons. Belinda, originally the property of the wife of Orlando, was chosen by Pope for his heroine of Rape of the Lock; Clarissa was fabricated out of the Italian Clarice by Richardson; and Pamela was adopted by him out of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia, as a recommendation to the maid-servant whom he made his heroine; and these, as names of literature, all took a certain hold. Pamela is still not uncommon among the lower classes.

In the mean time the House of Brunswick had brought in the regnant names of German taste—George, of which, thanks to our national patron, we had already made an English word, Frederick, Ernest, Adolphus—a horrible English Latinism of good old German, Augustus, an adoption of German classic taste; and, among the ladies, generally clumsy feminines of essentially masculine names—Caroline, Charlotte, Wilhelmina, Frederica, Louisa, together with the less incorrectly formed Augusta, Sophia, and Amelia.

This ornamental taste flourished, among the higher classes, up to the second decade of the nineteenth century, when the affectations, of which it was one sample, were on the decline, under the growing influence of the chivalrous school of Scott, and of the simplicity upheld by Wordsworth. The fine names began to grow vulgar, and people either betook themselves to the hereditary ones of their families, or picked and chose from the literature then in fashion.

Two names, for the sake of our heroes by sea and land, came into prominence—Horatio and Arthur, the latter transcending the former in popularity in proportion to the longer career and more varied excellences of its owner. Womankind had come back to their Ellen, Mary, and Lucy; and it was not till the archaic influence had gone on much longer that the present crop sprang up, of Alice and Edith, Gertrude, Florence, and Constance, copied again and again, in fact and in fiction, and with them the Herbert and Reginald, Wilfrid and Maurice, formerly only kept up in a few old families. It is an improvement, but in most cases at the expense of nothing but imitation, the sound and the fashion being the only guides. After all, nomenclature cannot be otherwise than imitative, but the results are most curious and interesting, when it is either the continuation of old hereditary names, like the Algernon of the Howards or the Aubrey of the de Veres, or else the record of some deeply felt event, like the Giustina of Venice, in honour of the battle of Lepanto, or our own Arthur, in memory of the deeds of our great duke.

Names are often an index to family habits and temper. Unpretending households go on for generations with the same set, sometimes adopting one brought in by marriage, but soon dropping it out if it is too fine. Romantic people reflect the impressions of popular literature in their children’s names; enthusiastic ones mark popular incidents,—Navarino, Maida, Alma, have all been inflicted in honour 463of battles. Another class always have an assortment of the fashionable type—Augusta, Amelia, and Matilda, of old; Edith and Kate at present.

Nonconformity leaves its mark in its virtue names and its Scripture names, the latter sometimes of the wildest kind. Talithacumi was the daughter of a Baptist. A clergyman has been desired to christen a boy ‘Alas,’ the parents supposing that ‘Alas! my brother,’ was a call on the name of the disobedient prophet. There is a floating tradition of ‘Acts’ being chosen for a fifth son, whose elder brothers had been called after the four Evangelists; and even of Beelzebub being uttered by a godfather at the font.

Among other such names may be mentioned ‘Elibris,’ which some people persisted belonged to their family, for it was in their grandfather’s books: and so it was, being e libris (from the books), the old Latin manner of commencing an inscription in a book. Sarsaparilla was called from a scrap of newspaper. ‘Valuable and serviceable’ is also said to have been intended for a child, on the authority of an engraving in an old watch; and an unfortunate pair of twins were presented for the imposition of Jupiter and Orion, because their parents thought them pretty names, and ‘had heard on them.’

Double names came gradually in from the Stuart days, but only grew really frequent in the present century; and the habit of calling girls by both, now so common among the lower classes in towns, is very recent.

With many families it is a convenient custom to christen the sons by the mother’s maiden name in addition to their first individual name; but the whole conversion of surnames into Christian names is exclusively English, and is impossible on the Continent, as state and church both refuse to register what is not recognized as in use. Of English surnames we need say nothing; they have been fully treated of in other works, and as any one may be used in baptism, at any time, the mention of them would be endless.

In speaking of England we include not only our colonies but America. There our habits are exaggerated. There is much less of the hereditary; much more of the Puritan and literary vein. Scripture names, here conspicuous, such as Hephzibah, Noah, Obadiah, Hiram, are there common-place. Virtues of all kinds flourish, and coinages are sometimes to be found, even such as ‘Happen to be,’ because the parents happened to be in Canada at the time of the birth.

‘Peabody Duty perhaps keeps a store,

With washing tubs, and wigs, and wafers stocked;

And Dr. Quackenbox proclaims the cure

Of such as are with any illness docked:

Dish Alcibiades holds out a lure

Of sundry articles, all nicely cooked;

And Phocion Aristides Franklin Tibbs,

Sells ribbons, laces, caps, and slobbering-bibs.’

The Roman and Greek influence has been strong, producing Cato, Scipio, Leonidas, &c.; but the habit of calling negroes by such 464euphonious epithets has rather discouraged them among the other classes, and the romantic, perhaps, predominates with women, the Scriptural with men. The French origin of many in the Southern States, and the Dutch in New England, can sometimes be traced in names.

Section VII.—Germany.

What was said of Frankish applies equally to old High German, of which Frankish was a dialect, scarcely distinguishable with our scanty sources of information.

We have seen Frankish extinguished in Latin in the West; but in the East we find it developing and triumphing. The great central lands of Europe were held by the Franks and Suevi, with the half civilized Lombards to their south, and a long slip of Burgundians on the Rhine and the Alps, all speakers of the harsh High German, all Christians by the seventh century, but using the traditional nomenclature, often that of the Nibelungenlied. The Low Germans, speaking what is best represented by Anglo-Saxon literature, were in the northerly flats and marshes, and were still heathens when the Franks, under Charlemagne conquered them, and the Anglo-Saxon mission of Boniface began their conversion.

The coronation of Charles by the pope was intended to establish the headship of a confederacy of sovereigns, one of them to be the Kaisar, and that one to be appointed by the choice of the superior ones among the rest. This chieftainship remained at first with the Karlingen; but after they had become feeble it remained, during four reigns, with the house of Saxony, those princes who established the strange power of the empire over Italy, and held the papal elections in their hands. It was under them that Germany became a confederation, absolutely separate from her old companion France.

There is not much to say of German nomenclature. She little varied her old traditional names. Otto, Heinrich, and Konrad, constantly appeared from the first; and the High German, as the literary tongue, has had the moulding of all the recognized forms.

The Low German continued to be spoken, and became, in time, Dutch and Frisian, as well as the popular dialect of Saxony and West Prussia. The Frisian names are, indeed, much what English ones would be now if there had been no external influences.

In spite of being the central empire, the German people long resisted improvement and amalgamation. The merchant cities were, indeed, far in advance, and the emperors were, of necessity, cultivated men, up to the ordinary mark of their contemporary sovereigns; but the nobility continued surly and boorish, little accessible to chivalrous ideas, and their unchanging names—Ulrich, Adelbert, Eberhard, marking how little they were affected by the general impressions of Europe. A few names, like Wenceslav, or Boleslav, came in by marriage with their Polish, Bohemian, and Hungarian neighbours; and Hungary, now and then, was the medium of the introduction of 465one used at Constantinople, such as Sophia, Anne, Elisabeth, which, for the sake of the sainted Landgraffinn of Thuringia, became a universal favourite. Friedrich came in with the Swabian dynasty; Rudolf and Leopold, with the house of Hapsburg.

Holland and the cluster of surrounding fiefs meanwhile had a fluctuating succession, with lines of counts continually coming to an end, and others acceding who were connected with the French or English courts. The consequence was, that the gentlemen of these territories gained a strong French tinge of civilization, especially in Flanders, where the Walloons were a still remaining island of Belgæ. The Flemish chivalry became highly celebrated, and, under the French counts of Hainault and Flanders, and dukes of Burgundy, acquired a tone, which made their names and language chiefly those of France, and tinctured that of the peasantry and artisans, so as to distinguish them from the Hollanders. Andreas, Adrianus, Cornelius, saints imported by the French dukes, were both in Holland and the Netherlands, however, the leading names, together with Philip, which was derived from the French royal family. The Dutch artificers and merchants had their own sturdy, precise, business-like character—their German or saintly names, several of which are to be found among our eastern English, in consequence of the intercourse which the wool trade established, and the various settlements of Dutch and Flemish manufacturers in England.

The revival of classical scholarship in the fifteenth century was considerably felt in the great universities of the Netherlands and of Germany, and its chief influence on nomenclature is shown in the introduction of classical names; namely, Julius and Augustus, and the Emperior Friedrich’s notable compound of Maximus Æmilianus into Maximilian, but far more in finishing every other name off with the Latin us. Some were restorations to the original form; Adrianus, Paulus, and the ever memorable Martinus; but others were adaptations of very un-Latin sounds. Poppo turned to Poppius; Wolf to Wolfius; Ernst to Ernestus; Jobst, instead of going back to Justinus, made himself Jobstius; Franz, Franciscus. The surnames were even more unmanageable, being often either nicknames or local; but they underwent the same fate; Pott was Pottus; Bernau, Bernavius; while others translated them, as in the already-mentioned instance of Erasmus, from Gerhardson, and the well-known transformation of Schwarzerd into Melancthon. The Danish antiquary Broby (bridge town), figures as Pontoppidan; Och became Bos; Heilman, Severtus; Goldmann, Chrysander; Neumann, Neander; and as to the trades, Schmidt was Faber; Müller, Molitor; Schneider, Sartorius; Schuster, Sutorius; Kellner, Cellarius.

The German Christian names did not permanently retain this affectation; but the Netherlanders, owing probably to the great resort to their universities, retained it long and in popular speech, so that in many Dutch contractions, the us is still used, as in Janus for Adrianus; Rasmus for Erasmus; and almost always the full baptismal name includes the classical suffix. The surnames, of course, adhered, and are many of them constantly heard in Germany 466and Holland, while others have come to England chiefly with the fugitives from the persecution that caused the revolt of the Netherlands. The Latin left in Dacia and long spoken in Hungary must have assisted to classicalize the Germans even on their Slavonic side.

The Reformation did not so much alter German as English nomenclature. The Lutherans, following their master’s principle of altering only what was absolutely necessary, long retained their hereditary allegiance to their saints, and did not break out into unaccustomed names, though they modified the old Gottleip into Gottlieb. Some of their sects of Germany however, invented various religious names; Gottseimitdir, Gottlob, Traugott, Treuhold, Lebrecht, Tugendreich, and probably such others as Erdmuth and Ehrenpreis were results of this revival of native manufacture. A few Scriptural names came up among the Calvinists, but do not seem to have taken a firm hold.

This was the land of the double Christian name. It was common among the princes of Germany, before the close of the fifteenth century, long before France and Italy showed more than an occasional specimen. It was probably necessitated, by way of distinction, by the large families all of the same rank in the little German states. They seem to have set the fashion which has gradually prevailed more and more in Europe; indeed, there are some double names that have so grown together as to be recognized companions, such as Annstine for Anne Christine, Anngrethe for Anne Margarethe. At present it is the custom in almost all royal families to give the most preposterous number of Christian names, of which one, or at most two, is retained as serviceable, &c.

A few Slavonic names crept in; chiefly Wenzel from Bohemia; Kasimir from the Prussian Wends; Stanislas from Poland; and the house of Austria, when gaining permanent hold of the empire, spread the names derived from their various connections; the Spanish Ferdinand, and Flemish Karl and Philipp, besides their hereditary Leopold and Rudolf, and invented Maximilian.

The counter-reformation brought the Jesuit Ignaz and Franz into the lands where the Reformation was extinguished, and canonized Stanislav. Under the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, Germany retrograded in every respect; and when she began to emerge from her state of depression, the brilliance of the French court rendered it her model, which she followed with almost abject submission. Every one who could talked French, and was called by as French a name as might be; the royal Fritz became Fédéric, and little Hanne, Jeannette, the French ine and ette were liberally tacked to men’s names to make them feminine, and whatever polish the country possessed was French.

This lasted till the horrors of the Revolution, and the aggressions that followed it, awoke Germany to a sense of her own powers and duties as a nation. Her poets and great men were thoroughly national in spirit; and though, after the long and destructive contest, she emerged with her grand Holy Roman Empire torn to shreds, her electoral princes turned into petty kings, her noble Hanse towns 467mostly crushed and absorbed in the new states, her Kaisar merely the Markgraf of Austria, enriched by the spoils of Lombardy and the Slavonic kingdoms, yet she had recovered the true loyalty to the fatherland and its institutions, cared again for her literature and her language, and had an enthusiasm for her own antiquities, a desire to develop her own powers.

German names, to a degree, reflect this. They have ceased to ape Latin or French. So far as any are literary, they come from their own national literature; but as in most of the states only ordinary names are registered, the variety is not great. More and more German names pass to England in each generation, and become naturalized there; but the same proportion of English do not seem to be returned.