WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10062, 7 June 1910, Page 4

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

j A Sydney paper has unearthed Borne remarkable instances of the manner in which children are handicapped in after life by the names given to them by their fond and foolish parents. A case is cited in which thirteen children muster among them no 1 fewer than eixty-fiva names. The father's name was plain James, and he came to New Soatn Wales from County Meath. He was a man of the mili-

tant sort, and loved the sound of the names of the old reformers and fighters who had been since the world began. His sons bad to suffer for this, for he ransacked the Bible and the pages of history to find them great names. They had to put up with such names as Paul Courcey Joshua John tiuss. Hill Knox Gordon Havelock Moses, Ruden Howard Nelson Zwinglius Blake, and Watt Booth , Wolseley Browning Drake. A3 might be expected, the Boer war was responsible for a weird crop of new names, battles, generals, and transport vessels being mixed up in picturesque confusion. Politics is quaintly personified in a young hopeful who is registered as "John Crick Federation Referendum," Weeks before the American fleet reached Australia its coming was heralded by the appearance in the register of su2h names as "Jonathan," "Sperry" and "Theodore." Lord Dudley arrived about the same time as the ship, and his name is found with names from the fleet--"Achilles Dudley Sperry [Vermont" is a typical example. Similarly the visit of the King and Queen as Duke and Duchess ot York was responsible for a prodigious crop of "Victoria Mays" and "Gaorge Ernests."