Now her name has clothed in the pure shines as the bright

decd-"pure, shining," as her name implies.
received its fullest interpretation. She is
white robes of the Lamb's righteousness, and
ness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever.

A CHAPTER ON NAMES.

"WHAT'S IN A NAME."

If it were possible to determine the character, personal appearance or other distinctive marks of each individual before giving him or her a name, the beauty and fitness of the latter would be much enhanced by its propriety. If for instance, a girl-child be of a fair complexion, let her be named Blanch, which means white, or Susan, which means a lily, or Bridget, i. e., shining bright. If she be a brunette, name her Violet-if gifted with smooth and flowing hair call her Julia, meaning "one who has soft hair;" if of small size, let her be named Paulina, i. e., little. And when you discover dawnings of a determined and inflexible disposition, name your daughter Constance, which expresses resolution. Should this quality in later years, degenerate into rudeness and obstinacy, you might add to the damsel yet another name, viz: Ursula, a shebear.

The timid child might be well named Ruth, which signifies trembling the quiet gentle one, Prene, i. e. peace, or Rosamund. a rose of peace.

What a stain did Benedict Arnold bring upon his good name, for Benedict (Latin,) bene and dico, is blessed and arnold is a maintainer of honor. And this brings us to remark, that we are often, as it were, committed to be good, or noble, or brave, if we would carry out in our words and deeds, the characters which our names give us. Let no man whose name is Charles be guilty of a mean act, for his name stamps him with the title of noble spirited. All Georges should turn their attention to farming, inasmuch as George signifies husbandman. Ferdinand is another responsible name, meaning pure, peace. John is the Grace of the Lord; Richard, Powerful, and Robert, famous in counsel; or, as another authority has it, one disposed to rest.

Female nanies are especially replete with beauty of meaning, and the responsibilities attached to them are fully as great. as in some of the cases before mentioned. Young lady, is your name Agatha! Mar not that name by an evil thought, for your name means good; is it Alice? stain it not by a plebeian deed, for the name means noble; is it Anna or Ann or Annie? let no harsh word escape your lips, for these names mean gracious; is it Catharine? let your life be what your name symbolizes, pure. Elizabeth or Eliza should be truth itself, for these names signify, the oath of God. So Jane is the Grace of the Lord; Frances or Fanny means flour

ishing; Gertrude, all truth; Amy, beloved; Charlotte, all noble ; Margaret, a pearl; Sophia, wisdom; and Lucy, light.

Barbara is from the same source as our word barbarous, but has properly the softer meaning of strange or foreign. Beatrice signifies making happy. Few names have been so sweetened and hallowed by poetry as this. Cecilia (and the less common male name Cecil) have, in the Latin, the signification of grey-eyed. Cicely is intrinsically and every where a maid of the dairy. Clara is one of the very finest of our female names. It has the meaning of clear or bright. Constance bears a similar meaning to that of Constantine-namely, resolute. Grace, one of the sweetest of all the names given to Christian women, signifies simple favor, or grace in the sense of favor. Felicia, the feminine form of Felix, has the same signification of happy. Letitia, usually shortened into Lettice, denotes joy. No sense could be better than this, whether the word is thought of as falling from parents' or from lover's lips. Lucy is a favorite name with almost all. It is derived from the same Latin word as the adjective lucid, and has much the same meaning. Mabel is either from mabella, signifying my fair, or contracted from amabalis, lovely or amiable. In sound and sense, whichever way is right, Mabel is well worthy of being perpetuated. Olivia is a good name, derived like Oliver, from the symbol of peace the olive. Patience means what, in common speech, the word implies. Never, perhaps, was there an appellation so consistent in its meaning with the impression we have of those who bear it, as Priscilla. A Priscilla is an antiquated, starched demoiselle in nine cases out of ten, and the word, with a touch almost of irony or satire in it, signifies a little ancient. To Prudence, which denotes what it professes to do, we have the objection of over-homeliness. Rosa, of which Rose is the prettier form, denotes simply a rose. The name is redolent of all that is sweet and fragrant.

Few people, when they hear a stranger's surname, pause to think how it originated. Yet, as men originally had but one name, as Adam, Enoch, Noah or Abraham; and as surnames, therefore, are of comparatively late origin, it affords a curious study to inquire how surnames originated.

The first resort, when population became so thick that surnames became necessary to distinguish the different members of a family, was to affix an epithet descriptive of some personal peculiarity, or of the trade the man pursued. Thus arose the names of Smith and Tanner, Brown, with others of a similar description. In some cases, the child was called by a name which distinguished it as the son of some well known person, and in this way originated Johnson, Harrison and Williamson. In the Roman tongue, where Fitz means son, arose in like manner, Fitzwilliam and Fitzgerald; and in the Celtic, where the prefix Mac has a like signification, Mac Donald, McMichael, and others of a cognate kind.

Another class of surnames has a local origin, the person being named from the estate he owned, or the village where he lived.

All English surnames ending in ford, field, brook, vale, street, and similar terminations, belong to the latter class. So do surnames ending in ham, ley, and tun, which signified respectively, in the old Saxon, house, meadow and town. Lytleton means, therefore, Littletown, and Granville, Grand town; and other names of the English nobility have the like plebeian origin. Examples of names derived from estates are De Spencer, De Coursey, and De Valence, de being the Norman for of; and therefore all names of this character belonged originally to Norman families. Another class of names are foreign ones, naturalized, so to speak, in England or here. Among these are Bouvier, the French name, meaning cowherd; Cadwallader, a Welsh name, meaning Chief of the Druids, and Campbell, an Italian name, meaning a beautiful field. This last name, curious to say, runs through nearly every language in Europe, as Fairfield Kemble, Beauchamp, and Schoenau. Neander is Neumann made classical, as Grotius is De Groot, transformed in a similar manner.

In addition to names descriptive of the personal appearance, there are names originating in mental qualifications. Goodman, Wise, Moody, and numerous others, illustrate this. All the Clarks are descended from ancestors, in various localities, who could read and write in those times when those accomplishments were rare, and who were therefore called clerks. There are many names, derived from occupations, which, at first sight, are little suspected of it. Chaucer is an instance, for it comes from chaussure, or hose, so that the ancestor of the great English poet must have been a stocking-maker. Sir Charles Napier, the rampant British Admiral, as well as William Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War, had a progenitor, centuries ago, who was a waiter, for the servant who offered the napkins or napery, to the guests, went by this name in old times. The lapse of centuries, and the consequent mutations of fortunes, have, in a similar way, put surnames often in odd contradiction to existing circumstances; for we have Goodmans imprisoned for crime, Kings playing the part of menials, and St. Johns cheating at cards. From a late work on 'Scottish Surnames' we extract the following:

Among these are Merchant, Merces, (sometimes Messer), Moneypenny, Chapman, Cheape, Seller, Scales, Clinkscales. Down at the mills, by the river side there is a busy population. "John of the Mill," has become John Mill. The unpopular office of gathering in the multures or mill-dues gives the name of Multerer, afterwards to become Mutter. Walkers are not named from their pedestrian feats, but from the walking or fulling mill where cloth is dressed, which affords the good name of Fuller also. The sturdy burgher who puts the salmon into barrels for exportation, and also barrels our good home-brewed ale, is known as William Cooper. His man who hoops the barrels is John Girdwood. The English call him Hooper. The officer who stamps the barrels is named Brander. Some of his descendants are people of good account round Elgin at the present day. He is sometimes known as John

Brand "for shortness:" and we have a respectable colony descen ded from him, and using that surname, on the coast of Forfarshire. Besides these worthies in the cooperage is another important trade, that of euring and dressing the skins of our cattle. Hence we have people bearing with good right the names of Barker, Tanner, Currier, (sometimes shortened into Curry), and Skinner. You will not doubt there are, in our thriving community, several Butchers, whose name is generally written, as well as spoken, Butchard; Bakers in plenty, whom we call Baxters; makers of ale, of both sexes, who think their Scotch name of Brewster quite as good as the southern Brewer; shoemakers and weavers, in the vernacular, Suters and Websters. The dyer is with us a Litster. The southrons have borrowed the name (making it Lister) without knowing its meaning. We have in our village Cooks, Kitchens, and Kitche ners, Tailors, Turners, Saddlers, Lorimers (i e., bridle makers) Glovers. Of workers in wood we have Wrights (whom the English call Carpenters), Cartwrights, Sievewrights, Joiners, Sawyers. The old trade name of Glassenwright, is to die out, but we have numerous Masons, Slaters, Plumbers, all affording respectable and enduring surnames. Two important handicraft, at the time of our imaginary visit, are soon to disappear, leaving only their names to their posterity. The maker of bows, the chief arm of war, is called Bower, and sometimes Bowmaker. The arrow-makers, whom the French name Flechier, from "fleche," are with us known as Fletchers, a name that is to survive and flourish long after their good weapons have given way before "the villainous saltpeter."

The Smith family is the most numerous of all those bearing names of occupation. This may be owing to the fact, that the 'Smith' of the age when surnames first became hereditary, included in his mystery, the work which Wheeler, Cartwright, and other Wrights' afterwards performed. There are 1,591 Smiths in the New York City Directory alone, of whom 177 have the prenomen John! The name of Smith has been made the subject of jokes and witticisms innumerable. A recent writer says: "From what has hitherto been discovered, the great and formidable family of the Smiths are the veritable descendants in a direct line of Shem, the son of Noah, the father of the Shemitic tribe. And it is thus derived Shem, Shemit, Shmit, Smith." Another writer, a wonderful philologist evidently, traces the name of 'John Smith' through all languages of the earth. Beginning with Hebrew, he says: "The Jews had no 'Christian' names, consequently no 'John,' and the name with them stood simply Shem or Shem or Shemit, but in all other nations the John Smith is found in full. Thus, in the Latin Johannes Smithius; Italian Giovanni Smithi; Spanish, Juan Smithas; Dutch, Hans Schmidt; French Jean Smeets; Greek, Jon Shmiton: Russian, Johnloff Shmittowski; Polish Ivan Schmittiwski; Chinese, Jahon Shimmit; Icelandic, Jahne Smithson; Welsh, Jihon Schmidel; Tuscarora, Ton Qa Smithia: Mexican, Jonth T'Smithli." The same learned pundit to prove the antiquity

of the name, observes that "among the cartouches deciphered in the temple of Osiris, in Egypt, was found the name of Pharaoh Smithosis, being the ninth in the eighteenth dynasty of the Theban kings." Among the derivations of Smith we have Goldsmith, Arrowsmith, Spear-Smith, Namyth, probably from Nail-smith and several others. Gow is Gaelic for Smith; hence McGowan is simply Smithson.

Barker is synonymous with Farmer. Jenner is an old form of Joiner and Milner of miller. Webb, Webber, Webster and Weber from the German is equivalent to weaver. Tucker is a fuller. Shearman and Sherman are shearers of worsteds and Bainster the keeper of a bath. Kiddster is an obsolete word for huckster. Ridler is a maker of sieves; Waite, a minstrel; Akerman, a farmer; Brewster, a brewer. The termination ster, originally signified a female worker, and the language of the law seems to presume that every unmarried woman is employed in spinning,-an employment so much in vogue in the olden time.

Many of the names of employments that survive remind us of crafts that have long since ceased to exist. Among such names are Archer, Arrowsmith, Fletcher, Billman, Bowmaker, Bowman, Crowder, one who played upon the crowd, Harper, Furbisher, Hawker, Hawkins, Pikeman, Pointer, and Stringer, or the maker of strings for bows.

Others occur in the following list of names of occupation, all of which existed as surnames in England, about and after the year 1200 Le Barbier, barber; Le Cuper, cooper; Le Cuteler, cutler; Le Bouteiller, butler; Fabre and Favre, falconer; Foster, forrester; Le Turner, turner; Le Taileur, Tailor; Latimer and Maseun, Mason; Spicer, grocer; Draper seems simply to have meant a cloth

merchant.

There is much that is curious in the family names of the people. They are often instructive in their combinations, and more frequently are full of amusement. There for instance, are the curiously opposite names of Ramsbottom and Goathead, the ornithological 'families of Crane, Pidgin, Hawks, Dove, and the locomotive tribes of Walker, Canter, Trott and Callop. Then we have the families of Cash Penny and Moneypenny, who are not always rich in spite of their names. Again, Mr. Rich is often a poor man, while Mr. Poor is frequently a rich one. Then we have families of all colors -Greene, Gray, White, Black, Brown, Blue, Scarlet; and of various compositions, as Clay, Mudd, Sands, Flint and Steele. There are people who are Hyer and Lower, Long and Short-not to speak of the Longfellows and Longmans-and others again who are Fuller and Shorter. There is fierce Mr. Mildman, mild Mr. Savage, and genial Mr. Wildrage who never gets angry!

But a list of the most singular family names is furnished to the Boston Transcript, by a correspondent who extracts from a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom, recently published in England. It seems scarcely possible that there are people in the world who bear names as the following: