Origin and j\fcaiii)ig' of Proj)cr JVames.
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��came the name of an association hav- ing common religious rites.
Some illustrious men received addi- tional names or titles from the coun- tries they conquered or the victories they won, as Africanus, Asiaticus, Torquatus. In familiar address the prse nomen was used. Horace says, "gaudent praenomine molles Auricu- lae." So with us, lovers, parents, and boon companions use the Christian name or a diraintitive of it.
There is probably a difference in meaning between sirnarae and sur- name. Sir, or Sire, is an abbrevia- tion of seigneur : hence sirname or si rename is simply the father's name added, as Mac Allan, Fitz Herbert, and Ap-JCvan are sireuames meaning the son of Allan, Herbert, and Evan. All nations resort to this usage. The Highland Scotch and Irish use Mac for son, as Mac Neil. The Irish also prefix 'S<r/' orO', meaning grandson, as O'Hara, O'Neale. O' and Mack now are common Irish prefixes, which is indicated in the following humorous stanza :
" By Mac and O
You '11 always know True Irishmen, they say ;
For if they lack
Both O and Mac, No Irishmen are they."
Titles among the ancients were fre- quently mistaken for proper names, as Cyrus in Persia, Pharaoh in Egypt, Lucumo in Etruria, Brennus in Gaul, and Coesar in Rome. Possibly these appellations may have belonged to individuals at first, who, owing to their distinction, transmitted their names, with their honors, to their successors. So the first twelve Ro- man emperors were called Ctesars from the first, who gave his cognomen
��to the oilice he created. So the em- peror of Russia is still styled the "czar," probably from the recollec- tions of the Roman imperial title. Some modern critics, I am aware, lind the origin of that word in the Russian tongue. Several of the royal families of England and Europe can trace their names to a more inolorious origin. Such are the ro^'al lines of Plantage- net, Tudor, Steward or Stuart, Valois, Bourbon, Oldenburg, and Hapsburg. The Medici of F'lorence, the city of flowers, it is said, derive their name from the profession of the founder of that illustrious house. He was a piiy- sician, '•'medicus •/' and his descend- ants becoming bankers and brokers, adopted the three golden balls as their sign to indicate that their founder was a maker and vender of jnlls^ or a Doc- tor of Medicine.
Surnames are over names, because, as Du Cange says, They were at first written not in a direct line afler the Christian name, but above it be- tioeeii the lines ;" and hence they were called in Latin supra uomina ; in Ital- ian, supra uome ; in French, suriioms, over-names. When the feudal sys- tem declined, and the undistinguished and undistinguishable serfs began to emerge into that political body called the nation, subject to enrolment and taxation, every individual must then have " a local habitation and a name," however much his social and polit- ical rights might hitherto have resem- bled "airy nothings." As late as the fifteenth century the king of Poland persuaded his barbarian subjects to adopt Christianity as their national religion. The nobles and warriors were baptized separately : the multi- tude were divided into companies, and
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