Books

Sneering at Mr Veneering

Arthur Marshall

Names Basil Cottle

(Thames and Hudson £9.50)

Some readers may happily remember the publication a few years ago of a book called Remarkable Names of Real People, an American compilation by in- defatigable John Train and a connoisseur's clutch of astonishing and hilarious names, assembled with the assistance of an interna- tional network of name-fanciers but chief- 1Y, of course, American. An Introduction

by S. J. Perelman was, as advertisers say, a guarantee of excellence.

Let us refresh our memories with a few examples. The Archbishop of Manila's name was Cardinal Sin, there was a Princeton chorister called Justin Tune and an Ohio lady named Ophelia Legg. Lawless & Lynch seem very adequate for a firm of New York attorneys and I. C. Shivers will do very well for a Pennsylvan- ian ice-man. I am in a position to add one

of my own. Some years ago the Head Girl of the Stroud Technical School was called Dawn Kick, a name with a somewhat alarming ante-natal ring to it.

And now from all nomenclaturians, a big welcome please for Dr Basil Cottle, hottish on the heels of Mr Train but with an altogether more comprehensive and erudite Work. Dr Cottle was once a member of the Wartime 'Enigma' team at Bletchley and for

36 Years a teacher in what must have been a very lively and unstuffy English Depart-

'bent of Bristol University. He spreads his net wide and the result is pleasure and in- terest all the way.

I Want my readers to rejoice in the names that furnish their lives — their own in-

herited and bestowed names, the

designation of their houses and streets, of their towns and villages, of their

vehicles and soaps, of the bird behind the song and of the flower behind the fragrance. ,The good doctor proves to be an ad- mirable guide through this nominal

wonderland and pounces eagerly on od- dities:

If you have a funny name, take care in choosing the street you live in. Where was the classical education of E. F. Raper who in 1962 had an address at 1,

The Road, Battersea, London? down Book of Common Prayer, laying

the correct form of words and bap-

tis wn Name procedure at the font, rules that after e",attle This Child' has been safely achiev- ::, the child shall be dipped in the water but ItlY if the infant 'may endure it', and Dr

Cottle asks 'Endure what — the water or the name?', going on to hint that in his own case, 'Basil' was an unpopular choice. There is certainly much to be said for a new law whereby Christian names can be subse- quently changed to suit the bearer's wishes, and the Clarences and Cuthberts, objects of ridicule at school (one of my names is 'Ber- tram' and so I am sympathetic) can switch to the safety zone of David and Charles and James.

Or, even, to the modish 'Wayne', really not a Christian name at all but a rather homely surname recalling Constable and meaning 'cart' or 'wagon'. It can only be an admiring parental pinch from John Wayne, possibly in the hopes that the boy will grow up to be like the lovable old film hero who put paid to so many screen baddies and who died bravely, inspiringly even, of cancer. Other film borrowings are Shirley and Gaynor (more interesting than Janet) but, on a less buoyant note, parents should think twice before landing a child with Marilyn or Elvis.

Our author comes down heavily on the fearsome name Samantha (she was one of the witches in the television series, Bewitch- ed) and writes with horror of the supreme cruelty of waggishly naming a boy after the eleven members of the local football team. One's heart goes out to a girl called 'Edelweiss' because her mother was inor- dinately fond of The Sound of Music (just as well it wasn't Des Rheingold and `Fricka'), and the Cottle experience throws up a man with the first name 'Andor' which sounds intriguingly Hungarian but which came from 'and/or', revealing pre-birth choices by parents not yet knowing his sex. Let us draw a veil over some of the com- monest abbreviations — Norm, Vern, Cy, Wal and Arch, and to the question 'What, incidentally, is a name?', let us relish the answer of one of Dr Cottle's colleagues: 'A name is anything that you can't use in Scrabble.'

Loyal Dickensians may care to cross swords with the author over his criticisms of The Master's choice, or invention, of fic- tional names — he is accused of exaggera- tion and various unforgettables such as Chadband, Jellyby, Jarndyce and Dedlock are all disapproved of. Nor are the stric- tures confined to Dickens: `Trollope can be almost as crude: in Barchester Towers the names Proudie, Slope and Quiverful rather shout at us.' Some may think they shout to good purpose. Dickens too.

The name Tappertit spoils the otherwise soberly-named Barnaby Rudge; but, equally, we would prefer to discover for ourselves that Mr Veneering in Our Mutual Friend is a flashy newrich, and not to have it thrown at us in his im- possible name.

1 myself would not so prefer at all but in an attempt to please Dr Cottle, why don't we refurnish some of Dickens's characters with one or the other 'possible' name: Wackford Henderson (a schoolmaster): Uriah Brown (a humble hypocrite): Bruce Micawber (an optimistic debtor). Not quite the same, are they?

Never mind, for delights abound elsewhere. 'Strictly speaking, nearly all ur- ban house-names are quite unnecessary, save as a treat to the owner's feelings . . . This is still an area where that much-derided unit, the family, can exercise complete freedom of choice' and off we go into the world of Dunmovin, Stilowen and Doopopin. Package holiday tours inspire jovial names such as Costa Lott and Costaplente. `Thistledome' is at first misleading until we break it down into `This'll do me'. Somerset boasts a Car- mania which looks at first sight like an old Cunarder but actually reflects the love-hate relationship between a man and his automobile. And there was a merry mo- ment in Cardiff in 1940 when a bombed house next to the undamaged 'Mon Abri' was labelled 'Mon Debris'.

When the subject of book titles comes up, poor old Dickens cops it again CI must say that I am not in the least attracted into reading books with daft names like Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby or Oliver Twist') while surprisingly high marks go to Miss Ethel M. Dell, whose 'strong, silent men, all steel and whipcord, prepare us for the fact that she married an army officer called Savage.' And wasn't it Miss Dell who, to emphasise the manliness of one of her heroes, produced the memorable sentence, 'He was covered in hair wherever he couldn't reach to shave', thus creating a bizarre and gymnastic picture of the gentleman's morning ablutions? Sample Dell titles are The Way of an Eagle, The Altar of Honour and The Juice of the Pomegranate. All less daft than Bleak House and A Tale of Two Cities?

However, one can forgive anything to somebody who on our behalf is prepared to go carefully through the Isle of Man Telephone Directory for 1962 and who has found that there is, and in Hemel Hemp- stead, a house called 'Knickers'.