names excite the derision of the English; an American comic character, in an English play or novel, always bears one of them. Again, the fashion of using surnames as given names is far more widespread in America than in England. In this country, in- deed, it takes on the character of a national habit ; fully three out of four eldest sons, in families of any consideration, bear their mothers' surnames as middle names. This fashion arose in Eng- land during the seventeenth century, and one of its fruits was the adoption of such well-known surnames as Stanley, Cecil, How- ard, Douglas and Duncan as common given names.[1] It died out over there during the eighteenth century, and today the great majority of Englishmen bear such simple given names as John, Charles and William often four or five of them but in America it has persisted. A glance at a roster of the Presidents of the United States will show how firmly it has taken root. Of the ten that have had middle names at all, six have had middle names that were family surnames, and two of the six have dropped their other given names and used these surnames. This custom, per- haps, has paved the way for another: that of making given names of any proper nouns that happen to strike the fancy. Thus General Sherman was named after an Indian chief, Tecumseh, and a Chicago judge was baptized Kenesaw Mountain[2] in memory of the battle that General Sherman fought there. A late candidate for governor of New York had the curious given name of D-Cady.[3] Various familiar American given names, originally surnames, are almost unknown in England, among them, Wash- ington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Colvfrnbus and Lee. Chaun- cey forms a curious addition to the list. It was the surname of the second president of Harvard College, and was bestowed upon their offspring by numbers of his graduates. It then got into 32 34
- ↑ Cf. Bardsley, op. tit., p. 205 et seq.
- ↑ The Geographic Board has lately decided that Kenesaw should be Kennesaw, but the learned jurist sticks to one n.
- ↑ Thornton reprints a paragraph from the Congressional Globe of June 15, 1854, alleging that in 1846, during the row over the Oregon boundary, when "Fifty-four forty or fight" was a political slogan, many "canal-boats, and even some of the babies, . . . were christened 54° 40’"
