What's in a Name?

"A rose by any other name will smell as sweet", according to Shakespeare, and a traditional adage asserts that while "sticks and stones may break my bones, names will never hurt me". To many people, however, names (and nicknames) are things of power. "If you call a dog Hervey, I shall love him," said Dr Johnson, recalling his affection for his patron Henry Hervey.

The poet Keats, on the other hand, seems to have felt that his forename had been badly chosen. In 1820 he wrote to his brother and sister-in-law, "If you should have a boy do not christen him John - 'Tis a bad name and goes against a man. If my name had been Edmund I should have been more fortunate." (In the 20th century, Marshall McLuhan thought that "The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.")

Humpty-Dumpty had no doubt of the suitability of his name, although he was doubtful about Alice's. "My name means the shape I am - and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost." He might have been puzzled by Alexis Korner's account of the paradoxical nicknaming of Keith Richards: "We lovingly named Keith Mr Unhealth. He always looked like the unhealthiest cat in the group. But we knew he was the strongest physically."

Samuel Johnson and John Keats are only two of the treasury of famous names to be found in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, now available in 60 print volumes and online. And for an explanation of some the most memorable nicknames, from the respectful to the irreverent, reach for Andrew Delahunty's Goldenballs and the Iron Lady: A Little Book of Nicknames.

Printer friendly version