The Utterance of Names

A NAME is a practical convenience, — so much so as to excuse us for forgetting that it is also a conduit of emotion and a rhetorical felicity. In the third person it is normally colorless, and even in the second person its office is commonly that of insuring the safe arrival of a thought or word at its destination. The humility of this function is apt to blind us to the fact that, when pronounced on occasions where no practical need requires its employment, the utterance of the mere name is one of the most powerful auxiliaries which the lover of emphasis or emotion can summon to his aid.

A name can italicize or underscore a thought. Take the little phrase, ‘In my mind’s eye, Horatio,’ or the weighty maxim, —

abstract that apparent irrelevance and superfluity, the proper name, and observe how the withdrawal of that prop leaves the whole expression unbraced and debilitated. The dead name is half the life of the passage.

The pronunciation of the name in places where its use is not imperative is felt to be an act of homage. Its utterance even in greeting is so far complimentary that its omission is held to be a slight; and the recurrence of the name at short intervals is one of the naïve means by which the poor and ignorant — like Ham Peggotty with his ‘Mas’r Davy, bor,’ and poor Jo with his unceasing ‘Mr. Sangsby,’ — testify their respect for their superiors. That men, even wise men, should be conscious of a delicate flattery in the mere sound of their own names may seem singular enough; but, after all, our separation in the minds of others from the mass of meaningless somebodies or nobodies is, in its way, a just ground for complacence; we have ceased to be aliquis and become quidam.

Any access of sympathy in conversation is likely to mark itself by this simple expedient. As the uttered name is the means by which we call or recall a distant friend to our side, so, by a simple but pleasing analogy, it is the name that expresses and promotes the moral approaches, the spiritual approximations, of man to man in the process of discourse. Intimacy even between intimates is a thing of shades and variations; hearts draw near and recede, relations tighten and relax, personalities bulk large or small, a score of times perhaps in the course of half an hour’s friendly conversation. When our friend says something which makes him seem for the moment large and near to us, — near because large, or large because near, — the sturdy Anglo-Saxon nature satisfies its double need of expression and reticence by that barest and baldest but most suggestive and efficient of resources, the utterance of the name. ‘That is true, Edgar,’ we say; ‘I think you are right, John.’

The psychology of all this is not hard to unravel. In impersonal or general conversation the outlines of our friend’s individuality become, not effaced indeed, but softened and attenuated; but the moment he arouses any strong emotion in us, his personality defines itself with instant and powerful distinctness against the background of that vivid feeling; and our quickened sense of his distinctness from other beings finds vent in the one word or term in the entire language which belongs to him and to him only.

A phrase like ‘I thank you,’ standing alone, is empty and arid; but add to that phrase a mere name; say, ‘I thank you, Alice,’ ‘I thank you, Charles,’ and observe how the commonplace has become tremulous and vibrant and eloquent; and all from its mere juxtaposition with a word so lifeless, apart from its associations, as a proper name. This dead thing, fit only, in appearance, to conclude documents or fill up directories, is in fact a magazine of power. Bulwer in an amusing and well-known passage has dwelt upon the malignity of the words ‘my dear,’ and has illustrated the varieties of effect by placing the phrase ‘Charles dear,’ or ‘my dear Jane,’ in various locations at the beginning, middle, and end of the sentence. His strictures are confined to the endearment; but if any one will read his sentences, retaining the ‘dear’ and omitting the ‘Jane’ or ‘Charles’ he will see that the proper name is the source of at least half the deadliness of the censured phrase. It is well known that indignation among the vulgar is prone to reënforce itself by the energetic and heated enunciation of the combined Christian and family names of its object. ‘Look here, Mat Beeler!’ exclaims the peppery sister in Mr. Moody’s Faith Healer, ‘I’m your born sister. Don’t try to fool me!’

There is hardly a passion which does not sometimes avail itself of this simple but potent instrument. ‘Why, John!’ cries the mother in the joyful surprise of an unlooked-for caress from the wayward son. ‘Philip!’ exclaims the wife, in a burst of love and pity, when the husband returns home at night to falter out the tale of his ruined fortunes. ‘George!’ breaks out, in wrath and warning, the friend whose patience at last succumbs before the torrent of undeserved censure. ‘Bill, Bill,’ cries poor Nancy in the moments of terrified appeal between the murderer’s threat and his crime. The name serves any office; it pleads, pities, scorns, threatens, rebukes, fondles; its eloquence scarcely needs the support of other words. Tragedy, in its deepest moments, is content with the wealth of its implications. Lear says to his daughter, —

Beloved Regan,

Words fail the confused mind of the old man, and his stumbling tongue is reduced to the repetition of his child’s name. He can do no more. Could he, or Shakespeare, have done better?