MARY PUSHED OUT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 July 1924, Page 7

MARY PUSHED OUT.

BY SMARTER NAMES. NOVELISTS’ CHOICE POPULAR. When people say that certain names influence their owners they are, of course, talking nonsense. One cannot get away from the truth that Shakespeare so neatly illustrated with the rose and its smell. What actually affects the owners of certain names is the influence of the individuals that gave them those names —not in the Catechism sense, but the actual givers, usually the father and mot'her, or, perhaps, one should have put the lady first. John, Johnny, and Jack wiil probably be three perfectly different types of individual, but John would have been just as staid and solid even if he had not always carried his baptismal gift spelled out in full. Johnny would have been just as much Johnny, who is a good-natured sort of chap who knows lots of people who borrow things from him and don’t think quite so much of him as they do John, don’t treat him with quite so much respect as they do John, or think him such a jolly good fellow as Jack. This difference between John, Johnny, and Jack is obviously caused by the character of the individuals that bestowed the variations of the name. You know, for instance, precisely the difference to expect between two homes, in one of which the boy is called Herbert and in the other the boy is called Bert. And one might have added a third, where the boy answers to the name of ’Erb, but that sort is dying out in the colonies. It is when we go back to what nomenclature really means that we find it Iso interesting, i Although certaijh names, have existed down the ages from the earliest times of which, we have any written record, it is astonishing how' the general class of names changes from one age to another. People that have had the. pleasure of naming the baby—according to the vital statistics published the other day the necessity will shortly disappear altogether—know that there is nothing that causes so much discussion. Even the naming of the dog has geen known to keep the family busy for a whole week — which is rather miraculous, seeing that there are only about six names at the outside that anyone ever heard a dog called by. But the fact that so much time and thought are put into the nam. ing of' them makes names so interesting—they smack so much of the giver. Goodness knows what sets the fashion in names. Sometimes, of course, it is some national ferment, such as war. We were all too busy during the late struggle to bother much about what we named the infant, but during the Boer war, when more of the community were lookers-on and could hold armchair discussions, the names of prominent fighters had an irresistible attraction for parents in search of a suitable epithet for the new 7 comer; Nowadays, when everyone can read, the wake of some highly popular book is blazed for years by a. long track of babies, and in this- respect the late Miss Marie Corelli with Thelma has probably more to answer for than any other single novelist in the Empire”. Go and listen to any batch of school children playing, and you will get all the pretty novel namps for girls, and not a few for hoys; but it must be confessed that the naming of hoys seems less subject to book influence than girls. Can it he' that father puts his foot down when it comes to naming the boys and lets mother have her own way with the girls Many 0 f the names in use to-day are undoubtedly very pretty, but the saddest fact to record is that the most beautiful name in .the world will soon exist only in old poems and in one or tw 7 o homes w 7 here they are old-fashioned and possess good taste.

In a long list of names of the scholars of a typical Auckland school there are only three Marys! And there isn’t a Mary Jane in the lot. Mary is nowhere in the race with the Thelma s Junes, Joans, Jeans, and the Bettes simply swamp it. Only a few years ago Betty and Betsy were considered dowdy and one usually associated it with some elderly person in quite humble walks of life. To-day the list of guests at any “smart function” will have quite a sprinkling of Bettys and other nice oldfashioned names that the whirligig of time has once more brought back into favour. Phvllis and Marjorie are still populai, and the good old-fashioned Dorothy shows no sign of diminishing popularity. Plain straight-out Elizabeth has quite a lot of admirers. The Lornas who were so numerous when Blackmore’s book was more in the limelight than it i s to-dav are fewer in number. Here and there a Maori name turns up, but there is not much scone in that direction. Taking the popular names of to-day as a. whole, one must admit that they generally look well when written, and in nearly every case have a musical sound; they are”, in short, much the sort of thing one meets with in the average popular novel and “best seller.”

Other popular girls’ names are May, Mabel, Mona, Iris, and Isabel, hut the charming old Barbara is comparntivelv neglected.

Among the hoys there does not to be the same desire to pick on something smart,* although there are probably more Algernons and others of that •sort than there would he if the matter had.been adjourned until the child was able to have a say in the matter himself. William seems in peril of falling into desuetude, but John still has a remarkably loyal following. Percy-, Albert. Horace, and the other everv-dav names are still well to the fore. While the naming of the hoys certainlv looks less romantic on paper one must confess that there, too, the desire for something on the romantic side has been aimed at, hut fortunately for the Aoungstors there is less .scope than there i s where their sisters are concerned. Summing up his impressions of modern names, an investigator would probablv confess that while they yon orally look veil and haven pleasant jingle to the ear in most cases they hardly suggest the virility that one would like to see in a young country.—Auckland Star.