Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1910 — PERSONS OF MANY NAMES. [ARTICLE]

PERSONS OF MANY NAMES.

Farmer I,ad with a Name for Every Letter In the Alphabet. One cannot help sympathizing with Lieutenant Tollemache, who, after groaning for many years under the burden of seven Christian names containing no fewer than sixty letters, has at last decided to jettison five of them and to be known for the future as plain “Leo de Orellana Tollemache,” a designation long enough surely to satisfy any reasonable man. And yet the gallant lieutenant, according to Tit-Bits, was an enviable person compared With the other members of his many named family, nine of whom share 103 Christian names among them, ranging in number from ten to seventeen, the latter number being the baptismal dower of one of his sisters, who If ever she has time to sign her full name must write: “Lyona Decim Veronica Esyth Undine Cyss Hylda Rowena Viola Adela Thyra Ursula' Ysabel Blanche Leilas Dysart Plantagenet Tollemache.” After such an autograph as this one turns with relief to the royal signature of the Empress Dowager of China, which contains but a paltry fifty-nine letters, or to that of a native of Hawaii who is content with fiftyone letters, eight of which are k’s and fifteen a’s. That a multiplicity of names is not the prerogative of “the higher classes was proved a few years ago when the infant boy of a Buckinghamshire farmer was presented at the font with twenty-six Christian names, each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, from Abel to Yarlah and Zacharlah, and when a farm laborer handed a list of twenty-onejiames to the vicar of a church near Tunbridge Wells as the dower of his baby boy. Fortunately for the child, the father was' induced to cut down the allowance to half a dozen. Even thus we can imagine that in future years that boy will look with envy on the offspring of a Mr. Penny, who labeled, his children' One Penny. Two Penny/ and so on, up to the full shilling’s worth of pennies. The absurdities of Christian names are illustrated in a Sussex jury list of the seventeenth century which may be seen in the British museum. Among the Jurors of that time were Safety-on-Hlgh Snat of Uckfleld.Kill-Sin Pemble of Westham, Fight-the-Good-Flght-of-Faith White, Small-Hope Biggs, Faint-Not Hirst and Earth Adams, although after all the names are no more remarkable than those given a few months ago to twin Infants in the Midlands, who will go through life as Faith Hope Charity Rogers and Pentar teuch Rogers.