SCOTTISH NAMES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2121, 16 October 1885, Page 2

SCOTTISH NAMES.

The Puritan fashion of going to the Bible for children's names , has nearly died out in this country. We have very fow Abrahams, Eliases, Phcebes, etc., and it is a little singularthat, though in Puritan New England the custom has survived, in Puritan Scotland, it never took deep root. Tbe Scotch, indeed, are pM)fully commonplace in their Christian'liames. Every boy who is not a John or avJames is an Andrew or an Alexander. If not, it is perfectly certain that he ib a Robert or a Thomas. Every girl who is not an Annie or an Elizabeth is a Maty or a Jane. The Saxon names now bo common all over England—Alfred, Edmund, Ethel —are unknown north of the Border. There is, however, even in the Lowlands, a fair sprinkling of Highland names, which bring a fragrance of the heather with them, and which almost always (unlike many of the Highland surnames) sound uncommonly well. Who would wish for a manlier name than Ronald or Kenneth, Alister or Norman 1 Hector is not all all an unusual name north of the Highland line—the only one of the classic names which is had in remembrance ; and Flora, since Flora Macdonald hid the wandering Prince, and long before, has been a favorite name with Highland girls. There are two good names for girls which are common north of the Tweed, and which do something to break the monotony of Annabellas and Elizabeth; one of these is comparatively seldom used in England, tho other hardly ever: these are Margaret and Euphemia. The warsfc of Margaret is that is rather long, and has no tolerable diminutive; but Effie is far from unpleasing. Alison and Elspeth have a quaint sweetness of their own, like their sisters Dorothy and Penelope on this side oSthe. Border.—Orange Blossoms. \