Names.
Everybody has one. As does everything.
Because most of our words are also a name for something, action, or feeling.
Countries have names. And objects have names.
A chair is what you call that thing you are sitting on right now, a click is the name of the action that brought you to this site, and fear is the name for the emotion you feel reading this; “where will this column end up, and how long will it go on?” Don’t worry – I promise it won’t be as boring as it sounds…

That everything has a name seems obvious to us, but this was not always the case. Let me give you an example. We all know there are many different insects, and every species has its own name. In the Roman Empire, you had of course insects. But whether it was beetles, mosquitoes, bees, or butterflies, the Romans had only one word for little creepy crawly or flying stingy animals; they were all “flies” to them. They made no difference between a bumblebee and a ladybug.

Names of the Roman population

That’s okay as long as it concerns insects, you might think. But half of the Roman population did not have a proper name either. Because the women did not receive a real name. Now, I know, you are thinking; ” but that’s nonsense – I learned about Julia, Drusilla, and Cornelia!”

But those names only meant “a daughter or woman from the family of this or that so and on”.
So Julia was a woman from the Julian (the family of Gaius Julius Caesar) family, and Drusilla was a woman from the Drusus family. And if a family had more than one daughter, it was simply solved by calling them “the older” and “the younger”. Although Greek women had far less freedom than Roman ones, at least they had their own names.

Of course, Rome was a very formal culture and therefore had very formal rules. But on the other end of the globe, there was a culture that took formality even a step further; Japan.

The case of Japan

In Japan, classes were strictly separated. You had your priests, nobility, warriors- and then you had the underclasses, the people who did the work.
These working classes weren’t even really human in the eyes of the upper-class Japanese (for instance, a samurai had the right to kill whoever stood in his way totally unpunished- just as long as it was someone from the lower echelons of society, of course), and they did not even have names, they were reduced to their task in life.

So, a cook was called Cook, and a porter was called Porter. Simple as that. That custom was continued in Japan at least up until the late eighteenth century. Today it is frowned upon – just as some have serious objections against samurai cutting people in half. That’s progress for you…

The history of most names is shrouded in mystery. We simply don’t know who the first Jane was, or who was the first man called Barry.
The only name (as far as I know) we know where it came from for certain, is Charles (and all its derivatives, like Charlotte, Karl, Carl, Carla, etcetera).

Charles means man or bloke. During the second half of the 7th century, Pepin of Herstal was the most powerful man in the Frankish kingdom, and he was married to Plectrudis. But as an all-powerful man, he had a healthy sexual appetite, so he had a mistress, called Alpaida. When she gave birth to a baby boy, the servant who was sent to bring the good news to Pepin, found him in the company of his wife. The servant didn’t want to upset or offend Plectrudis, so he informed Pepin that “de kerle” (the man) had arrived. Pepin hence gave his illegitimate son the name Karl. We all today know him as Charles Martel (Carl Hammer), and he became the forefather of Charlemagne.

Indian Influence

In the western world, most children have played cowboys and Indians. The children who played the Indians took names like White Feather, Strong Bison, or Fast Arrow, and as children, we laughed about what we thought of as “those silly names”. But, although we have mostly forgotten about what our names mean, we have the same kind of names as the Indians did; Richard means he who is (or will be) rich, Gerard means fast spear, and Herman means Leader of the Army.

Here you can check our recipe with a peculiar name “General Manager Chicken”.  You may also click on this link to read the blog about funny recipe names.

Have you some interesting stories about your name? Let us know!

Oh, and Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Spicy New Year!