270 



On Proper Names, ^ 



[ Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, 

 by Mr. MERRi-rr.] 



The subject of proper names has engaged the attention of ety- 

 mologists, antiquarians, and philologists, less perhaps than any 

 other department of the researches connected with language. 

 It has commonly, indeed, been ranked among those ** difficiles 

 nugcd,'^ which are more curious than useful, and which are 

 better adapted to fill up the occasional vacancies of literary 

 leisure, than to be classed amongst the serious objects of 

 useful study. Under this conception, it has been so much 

 neglected, that except in those curious and ingenious fragments 

 of Camden, commonly called his '• Remains," I am not 

 aware of any author possessing the requisite talents who has 

 written on it expressly, or systematically*. I may, however, 

 venture to affirm, that the subject is neither so frivolous nor so 

 useless as it may at first sight appear. An inquiry into the 

 origin, varieties, and classification of proper names is calcu- 

 lated to throw considerable light on the history of the human 

 mind, on the character of nations, and on the process of civi- 

 lization. In this view, it may claim a superiority over many 

 other pursuits, which serve to exercise the ingenuity of the 

 studious, and to swell the list of liberal exercitations, without 

 making any very important additions to the stock of useful 

 knowledge. At all events, the subject in question has the 

 merit of being one of those qui omnium pariter intersunt 

 hominum, and which equally concerns, in however slight a 

 degree, each individual of the human race. Every man has a 

 name, and every man, if his attention should happen to be 

 turned in that direction, must feel some curiosity to know of 

 what that name is significant, and how it originated. But 

 although in the daily intercourse of men, the subject meets our 

 eyes and ,ears more than almost any other, yet very few have 

 thought it worth their while to make it the object of deliberate 

 reflection, and still fewer of premeditated investigation. The 



* Of late years some slight attempts at investigating the formation of British 

 proper names have appeared in some of our literary jovirnals, but all that 1 have 

 seen have been quite superficial and indigested, loosely compiled from insignifi- 

 cant sources, and produced visibly by persons destitute of most of tha requisite 

 qualifications for such an undertaking. 



