PERSONAL NAMES 



THEIR SIGlS^IFICAIsrCE AXD HISTOEICAL ORIGlK 



JAMES DAVIE BUTLER^ EL. D. 



^^Go to pot, I tell you, Sir, go to pot!'' These words were 

 my greeting from the head of the Boston public library when I 

 began to seek there for the significance of personal names. His 

 language was brusk and would have sounded contemptuous to a 

 stranger. But he had been my classmate a decade before and 

 had taken as many jokes as he had given. His meaning was; 

 The best book in Boston to tell you what your name means is 

 a volume by Augustus Frederick Pott. Its full title is ; Die 

 Personennamen ; insbesondere die Familien-namen und ihre 

 Entstehungarten, auch unter Beriicksichtigung der Ortsnamen. 



This work published in 1853 is by no means antiquated. It 

 is larger than any one of the twenty volumes on the subject in 

 our Historical Librarv, — and thou2;h each of those more recent 

 works has points of superiority, — no better advice can now be 

 given to a beginner in patronomatology than ''Go to Pott, I 

 tell you. Sir, go to Pott!" 



My friend's jocular order, however, led me to tell him a trifle 

 of my earliest experience in the Paris police-office when pass- 

 ports were a daily necessity. Ushered into a long hall where 

 a score of clerks were wi'iting on each side, I walked up to the 

 nearest one, passport in hand, Avishing to get it vised. He 

 glanced up at me from his desk, and said O Booh ! paying me 

 no further attention. I passed on to another Avriter who also 

 said O Booh ! and nothing more. I turned across the room but 

 heard no other salutation. O Booh to right of me, O Booh to 

 4 



