American prodigies as Darby for Enroughty, the English them- selves have Hools for Howells, Sillinger for St. Leger, Sinjin for St. John, Pool for Powell, Weems for Wemyss, Kerduggen for Cadogen, Mobrer for Marlborough, Key for Cains, March- banks for Marjoribanks, Beecham for Beauchamp, Chumley for Cholmondeley, Trosley for Trotterscliffe, and Dcw% for Derby, not to mention Maudlin for Magdalen.
§2
Given Names—The non-Anglo Saxon American's willingness to anglicize his patronymic is far exceeded by his eagerness to give "American" baptismal names to his children. The fa- vorite given names of the old country almost disappear in the first native-born generation. The Irish immigrants quickly dropped such names as Terence, Dennis and Patrick, and adopted in their places the less conspicuous John, George and Wittiam. The Germans, in the same way, abandoned Otto, August, Her- mann, Ludwig, Heinrich, Wolfgang, Albrecht, Wilhelm, Kurt, Hans, Rudolf, Gottlieb, Johann and Franz. For some of these they substituted the English equivalents: Charles, Lewis, Henry, William, John, Frank and so on. In the room of others they began afflicting their offspring with more fanciful native names : Milton and Raymond were their chief favorites thirty or forty years ago.[1] The Jews carry the thing to great lengths. At present they seem to take most delight in Sidney, Irving, Milton, Roy, Stanley and Monroe, but they also call their sons John, Charles, Henry, Harold, William, Richard, James, Albert, Ed- ward, Alfred, Frederick, Thomas, and even Mark, Luke and Matthew, and their daughters Mary, Gertrude, Estelle, Pauline, Alice and Edith. As a boy I went to school with many Jewish boys. The commonest given names among them were Isadore, Samuel, Jonas, Isaac and Israel. These are seldom bestowed by
- ↑ The one given name that they have clung to is Karl. This, in fact, has been adopted by Americans of other stocks, always, however, spelled Carl. Such combinations as Carl Gray, Carl Williams and even Carl Murphy are common. Here intermarriage has doubtless had its effect.
