By Sara Barnicle
"Shirley Shirley bo-birley
Bonana-fana fo-firley
Fe-Fy-Fo-Firley...
Shirley!"
It was a hit song back in 1965. And before that, it was a street children's song. And for some inane reason, it is infectiously fun to sing.
Names are very important. They are important, obviously, to the individual. But think of the times that you have met someone and been pleasantly surprised to find that you like them and you realize the surprise is because their name conjures up a bad association for you. And you probably didn't realize that you've always been wary of someone named Patty, or Harry, or whatever, just because a Patty or a Harry, back in the first grade, was a real know-it-all or a bully.
There are two groups of people, though, who are very concerned about names. The first would be expecting parents. Often, choosing the name of the child is easy ... naming it after a grandparent or a favorite name. But it throws a lot of people into a quandary.
There are tons of books to help pick a first or "Christian" name. "The Big Book of Baby Names," "How to Pick the Right Name for Your Baby," and "From Aaron to Zoë: 15,000 Baby Names" are just some examples. There are even specialty books like "A is for Adam: Biblical Baby Names," "The Melting Pot Book of Baby Names," and even a "What Not to Name Your Baby." One of the more recent favorites, though, is "Puffy Xena, Quentin, Uma and 10,000 Other Names for Your New Millennium Baby."
Genealogists form the other category of name fanatics. Their concern is about surnames, or family names. But even if you are not preparing an elaborate family tree, there is a natural curiosity about the origins of our names.
The specialists will want to look at titles like "English Ancestral Names," "German-American Names," "The New Dictionary of American Family Names," and "Hispanic Surnames and Family History." These books delve into the history and development of last names that are passed on from generation to generation.
There are also some very interesting books for the idly curious. "Family Names: How Our Surnames Came to America" and "The Story of Surnames" are examples of some fascinating reading about an intimate part of everyone's lives that is rarely thought about. The evolution of surnames and how they are generally all based on place names (Hill), patronymns (Morrison), occupational names (Fletcher), and descriptive (Armstrong) is interesting, especially, when it is found that this is true in all languages, not just English.
Almost 400 years before "Shirley, Shirley, Bo-Birley," Shakespeare had written, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." And it is true that if we called the rose a muckawimpus, it would still be a beautiful, fragrant flower. But Juliet was trying to justify falling head-over-heels for Romeo, the son of her family's arch enemy. And therein we sense Shakespeare's irony. Between the innocent girl's thoughts and the untimely death of the young lovers exists the fact that one was a Capulet and one was a Montague and that led directly to their downfall.
Names do matter. At least people's names matters. And reading about them can be almost as interesting as reading about the people.
* CHECK IT OUT is written by the staff of the Newport Beach Public Library. Titles may be accessed through the library catalog at www.newportbeachlibrary.org or by calling (949) 717-3800, ext. 2.