The Language of Names

From the names we give our children to the names Hollywood gives to its stars, a study of the ways in which names shape our culture argues that our identities and how we live our lives are tied up in what we call ourselves. 25,000 first printing.

A husband and wife who achieve literary distinction independent of each other are unusual. Practically unique, then, must be the phenomenon of any such pair joining forces to write a single work, which is exactly what award-winning biographer and critic Kaplan (Walt Whitman: A Life) and novelist Bernays (Growing Up Rich; Professor Romeo) set out to do. When not the subject of superficial baby-naming guides, the study of names, or onomastics, can actually be enthralling, as it is here. With much verve and a little self-interest, the two tackled the sticky legal, social, psychological and linguistic problems that surround modern American naming practices, whether they concern children, fictional characters or movie stars and starlets. In chapters on such topics as maiden names, the etiquette of exchanging names, naming in the black community and immigrants' name-changing, Kaplan and Bernays combined a survey with cultural history. The only drawback is the sometimes rambling, sometimes overly combative tone one or the other or both adopt as readers are regaled with anecdotes about the Hollywood name game or assailed with the reasons that women who adopt their husbands' names may be caving in to masculine biases. Such quibbles notwithstanding, rarely has the fundamental human function of naming received such an energetic, enlightening and engaging treatment.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A pleasantly discursive and anecdotally informative light meditation on the ``profound, almost magical, but often unacknowledged significance'' of names. The husband-and-wife team of biographer Kaplan (Walt Whitman: A Life, 1980, etc.) and novelist Bernays (Professor Romeo, 1989, etc.) canvass the importance of naming, from Adam's labeling of creation to the artificially concocted trademarks of the contemporary Namelab, a San Francicobased company that came up with product tags like ``Acura'' and ``Compaq.'' Although naming is a universal phenomenon, the authors concentrate on North America, where there has been historically more room for innovation and confusion. The colorful, odd, or startling names given many of the nation's localities are as diverse as the more problematic renamings of its immigrant population. For example, the curiously named Judge Learned Hand opined in the case of the Selwyn film company against Samuel Goldfish (a.k.a. Schmuel Gelbfisz) that ``a self-made man may prefer a self-made name,'' and allowed the defendant to call himself Samuel Goldwyn. The cultural and transliterative difficulties of Eastern Europeans seem almost negligible when compared to those of African-Americans (or blacks, Negroes, etc.), who wrestle with the dilemma of established ``slave'' names as opposed to adoptive pan-African patronymics. Changing names is almost mandatory in some professions, especially the film industry, where Gladys Smith became Mary Pickford. In the literary world, authors like Dickens (first called Boz) and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) took as much trouble with their noms de plume as with their characters. While they deftly sample a smorgasbord of nomenclature, the authors are slightly less adept in extracting significance, such as psychological meanings and social usages, from the matter of naming. But unpacking what's in a name, especially in America, makes for an inexhaustible and entertaining subject for Kaplan and Bernays. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Pulitzer Prize^-winning biographer Justin Kaplan and his wife, novelist Anne Bernays, have teamed up to produce an accessible overview of names and the role they play in our culture. Arguing that names are bound up with our identities, they discuss literary names, immigrant and Hollywood name changes, African American names, the changing popularity of various names, and the issues surrounding women keeping their own names. One chapter treats American place-names. With its added dose of humor, this summation of scholarly research on names is a very entertaining book. Sandy Whiteley

Kaplan, a biographer (Mr. Clemens & Mark Twain, S. & S., 1991) and editor (Bartlett's Familiar Quotations), and his wife and coauthor, novelist Bernays, offer a wealth of facts and anecdotes on names from sources as diverse as Olympic skater Dan Jansen, Sigmund Freud, Amy Vanderbilt, and Plato. The authors touch on immigrant, racial, literary, and maiden names, as well as on such topics as the etiquette of names, naming practices and superstitions, and identity and names. "Names are what anthropologists call cultural universals," the authors write. "Apparently, there has never been a society able to get along without them." Lay readers and specialists interested in society and culture as well as language and literature will be interested in this work. Appropriate for public and academic libraries.?Nancy P. Shires, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, N.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.