What's In a Name?

There are two name stories humming around the news wires at present, one with a French connection, and the other a Brighton one.

Here is Brighton our local public school, Brighton College, has made the news 'cos theyr're searching for a Peyton. They have a bequest from a late old boy that will fund a pupil at the school provided the same pupil bears the honoured name of Peyton (no hyphenated varieties allowed).

So far they're drawn a blank. Seemingly they've contacted 600 Peytons in the UK but found no volunteers. The search is now moving abroad.

If nothing else, the school is enjoying thousands of pounds, dollars and euros of free advertising.

Meanwhile in over in France a police officer of North African descent ends up in court because he wants to change his family name. In France you can only change your name if you can establish that you suffer discrimination because of it. That fact in itself is of interest to readers in Britain, a place where changing your name by deed poll is a well known past time.

But over there in France Mon. Bairi (the police officer) had chosen, not the French equivalent of Smith or Brown, but d'Artagnan, and Senator de Montesquiou Fezensac d'Artagnan, the august descendant of the other, famous d'Artagnan (of the Three Musketeers variety) objected to a prole wanting his ancestral name.

Yip, today's d'Artagnan is a French senator and president of the Company of Musketeers, the well-known boozing fraternity, and he went to court to try to knock down the upstart Bairi.

He lost.

So what's the moral of this story.

Well, it's usual to consult the Bard in the matter of names.

Juliet: "What's in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet".

But the bard always had it both ways., and Iago in Othello says: "Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, / Is the immediate jewel of their souls. / Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; / 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; / But he that filches from me my good name / Robs me of that which not enriches him /And makes me poor indeed."