It is perhaps unsurprising that there should be fashions in
first names, perhaps influenced by movie stars or more arcane sources. What is
certain is that the fashion for Ryan is besieging us ad nauseam, starting with
the obnoxious Ryan Seacrest on morning TV. But there are Ryans lurking or
larking in every nook and cranny. Consider, for example, the three kids who
alternate as Charlie in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” on Broadway: two
are outright Ryans, and one has Ryan for middle name.
True, some years ago there was the movie star Ryan O’Neal, father
of the movie star Tatum O’Neal, but is that explanation enough? When it came to
popularity, there were the likes of Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Tyrone Power,
and several others, admittedly star daughterless, but none of them begetting a
nomenclatural avalanche. Is it just that Ryan slips off the tongue more fluidly
than any of the aforementioned three? Ryan may generate illusions of originality
by not being a calendar name, but, again, neither are the cited three. Only
Gary Cooper may have occasioned some Garys, a mere rivulet compared to the
swamp of Ryans. But then why hardly any Carys from Grant?
There are even—horrors!—some female Ryans, but no Spencers,
albeit quite a few Tracys, possibly inspired by “The Philadelphia Story.” The
quasi-Irishness of Ryan may also account for its favor with Irish Americans, as
Bruce may appeal to Scottish ones, and Tony, or Anthony, may be the bequest of
Italy. But there are very few Fritzes or Adolphs, for which blame two world
wars and Hitler.
On the female side, except for some by now out of fashion
Marys and Marias, there are four single or groups of names that hold sway,
though even added together no match for the Ryans. They are Megan (sometimes
foolishly Meghan, since the silent H needlessly duplicates the G); Katy or
Cathy or other offspring of Catherine; countless variants of Christine--mostly
of the Kristen, Kirsten and Kirstin version--which may have seemed original until
they became ubiquitous, eliciting even a New Yorker cartoon; and Jenifer,
valiantly solitary, what with Jenny barely a ripple. There is, to be sure, the
beloved J-Lo, who may play a role in this. I doubt very much that most parents
were cognizant of its Celtic origins as Winifred or Winifrid, meaning, as Eric
Partridge points out, “white wave or stream.” Altogether, etymology figures
rather less than euphony when it comes to naming.
I wonder, though, why none of these is comparable to Ryan,
which may also usurp its closeness to the Hibernian Brian or Bryan, meaning
“strong,” and as such, I think, appealing to the shillelagh-brandishing Irish.
As for Katy and its derivatives, may they have something to do with the beloved
Hepburns, Katharine and Audrey? I wonder also why there should be four top
women’s names as over the single one for men. Are the parents of females
slightly less regimented than those of males? If so, why?
In my own case, I don’t worry about the frequency of Johns.
Let me quote Partridge’s book “Name This Child”: “The name owes most of its
vast European popularity to the Evangelist; its brevity and strength have
contributed to make it, in the minds of the majority, the finest of all
‘Christians.’ From Hebrew: ‘God is gracious.’” Q that about God’s graciousness
in the light of the Holocaust and Babi Jar, and see how welcome you will be to
survivors. Apropos Evangelists, why does John outperform the other three? In
any case, my only problem with John is that when I hear it in a crowd, it often
makes me turn my head in vain. I also slightly resent all the Jons, whether or
not they are abridgments of Jonathan.
To be sure, names and titles can be problematic. Take Shaw,
who expressly stated that he wanted to be known as Bernard rather than George
Bernard, yet to a vast majority he remains the latter. This despite the fact
that all collections of his works and books about him have him as Bernard,
granted that relatively few people actually read them. Those few include
American producers and publishers
nevertheless clinging to George Bernard. This may have to do with fear
that the great unwashed may assume Bernard to be somebody other than George
Bernard and stay away. In Germany, where he was steadily popular in
translation, he always was just plain Bernard.
And now: how many times , even in my blog posts, have I insisted that Ibsen’s play
should be “A Doll House,” and not “A Doll’s House.” The genitive “doll’s”
merely suggests the house of the heroine, Nora Helmer. The nominative, ‘doll’
alludes to the children’s toy, the miniature, to which the patriarchal Torvald
Helmer has reduced the Helmers’ adult home. Conscientious translators all stick
with the nominative, but are far outnumbered by the genitivists. Even the
successful current Broadway sequel by Lucas Hnath, “A Doll’s House, Part 2,”
persists in the error.
Again, how many people misspell the name of the
distinguished Dwight Macdonald as MacDonald? Admittedly, the pronunciation is
identical, but the spelling to any literate reader is an eye- or mindsore.
Mispronunciatian, however, is flagrant in Chicago, where Goethe Street is
largely pronounced as trisyllabic Go-ea-the Street.
In fact, if you correctly pronounced it the German way, a
cabdriver wouldn’t know what you meant.
In France, however, the name Mozart is universally Gallicized
into Mozarr even by intellectuals who know better, as a result of chauvinism
rather than ignorance. But at least a cabbie knows where you want to go. And
while we are on pronunciation,
how often does one cry out that the word is groceries, and
not grosheries? And how come that in a prominent hospital I spent time in, not
a single nurse said “lay down” instead of lie down? Should I protest in my
correction, or just let sleeping dogs lay?
