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What's in a surname?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2008

Extract

TO JUDGE by the evidence on the right, names can mean a great deal to some people!

I must confess to never having been really happy with my name, one of the commonest in England and Wales. For this reason I began, at a very early age, somewhat secretively, to read telephone directories. I was in search of “the name”. There always seemed to be something limp-wristed and anaemic about mine. After all, even Tommy Atkins received his apotheosis in Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads:

“God Bless You, Tommy Atkins, we're all the world to you.”

Type
Lexicon
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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