Page 49 - Foy

THEY HAD TO CALL US SOMETHING

NE of the most famous quotes concerning names comes from
SHAKESPEARE. He wrote, "What's in a name ? That which we call
Oa rose by any other name would smell as sweet." And so it would. But
in man's world it still has to have a name.

It seems man has always had a need to name things. The Bible tells about GOD
forming all the wild animals and the birds of heaven out of the ground. He then
brought them to ADAM to see what he would call them. Whatever ADAM called
them became their name and man has been naming things ever since.

In recorded history there are millions of stories of how people got their names:
some for how they looked, some for habits they had, some for where they lived,
some for who their parents were... There is no end to how and why people were
named what they were, for after all, they had to be called something.

In the early years, when the world had few people, when even in the cities there
were only a few thousand inhabitants, when most of those inhabitants never got
more than ten or fifteen miles from their birthplace and when messages were
carried by personal messengers, there was hardly a necessity for anyone to have
more than one name, if any name at all. Even Kings got by with a single name.
When someone referred to King DAVID, there was no need to ask, "DAVID
who?"

As man began to write and to record the events of his culture for others to read,
however, names became more important.

The ancient Greeks generally used only single names (SOPHOCLES and

PLATO, for example), but sometimes when there was a need to further
distinguish a person, a descriptive term was used like ALEXANDER the Great
or ALEXANDER, son of PHILLIP.

During Rome's centuries of greatness, Romans - especially those of the upper
class- were likely to have three or even four names, and these names were passed
on to their children. History records that during the decline of Rome some

Ch. 3 Pg. 1