Open Writing

This train of thought has been set by the arrival of a sort of honorary-two-step-great-grandson who, according to law, must be named and registered some months hence. My interest is that I first knew the child's mother when she was eight years old. Now, to 'simplify' matters, she has re-registered herself as having a surname with no obvious connections to her family, though her husband still goes by his family surname. Friends and relatives awaiting the naming will, of course, invent their own nicknames for the child. There is no reason to call him 'Blue' as his hair is not red, and he is not yet tall enough to be called 'Tiny' or fat enough to be named 'Slim'

It all makes me wonder whether we should give up on names and just know people by their DNA codes. But then, how does one express in two or three syllables the fact that at certain places on the double helix of DNA strands certain genes are located? Even that could land you with a problem when naming identical twins.

Bestowing 'given' names calls for careful negotiation. The recipient is stuck with the given name, or names, received at registration and repeated in full on legal documents and probably on bank accounts, unless a real effort is made to change the name. In ordinary life given names may not be much used. Anyone given Richard is likely to be called Dick, John is commonly referred to as Jack, Elizabeth may become Peggy, and so on.

When negotiating the naming of my sons, I tried to avoid names that were rather too fanciful to be taken to school, where a lad's contemporaries are all too ready to make fun of them.

No known rules seem to govern nicknames. One lad, who brought to secondary school the given names Terence Jeremiah, was known as Nosey after a facial feature. Another, with ordinary given names, was known as Cassius because of his lean and hungry look as described by Shakespeare in 'Julius Caesar'.

Naming of animals is a free-for-all. Our first farm dog, named Johnson after the man who bred him, was succeeded by many, including Brutus and later, Daicos after a well known footballer.

Naming of dairy cows became a work of art in herds whose production records were kept and published. In registered, so-called 'pure bred' herds, the breeder had his own prefix, followed by given names of individual cows. These usually followed a family pattern—a bit like human royalty with its series of Henrys, Williams etc. Sometimes the owner-breeder's name was a guarantee that an animal was likely to be a superior producer. Such a breeder was a Mr. Woodmason. As the owner of a descendant heifer said, 'she should be a good producer. She's by a Freemason bull.'

The less aristocratic cows in local herd test associations were given names which sometimes reflected historic events.
One called 'Depression' was so named in the 1930's, and some cows bore the name Bradman after the test cricketer. Another was named 'Amy Johnson' after the famous aviatrix. When the cow's daughter came into production she was given the name 'Miss Mollison' after the married name of the aviatrix.

What should we do about inanimate things which have no DNA structure? Names like 'clothes' and 'floor' seem straightforward, but a Scottish airman pleading for clothes lockers asked, 'Must we hang oor claes on the flair?'

Above all, can we rid ourselves of the business jargon, which turns verbs into nouns? It distorts simple statements, such as 'And God said, "let there be light and there was light"'. The Boardroom version might read, 'The necessity of illumination having been raised and the requisite environmental impact study having led to the legitimisation of the proposal, its implementation duly reached a state of accomplishment'.

© Ken Sillcock

Ken writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.co.org.au