National Nomenclature

by Washington Irving

　　Sir,I am somewhat of the same way of thinking, in regard to names, withthat profound philosopher, Mr. Shandy, the elder, who maintained thatsome inspired high thoughts and heroic aims, while others entailedirretrievable meanness and vulgarity; insomuch that a man might sinkunder the insignificance of his name, and be absolutely "Nicodemusedinto nothing." I have ever, therefore, thought it a great hardship for aman to be obliged to struggle through life with some ridiculous orignoble Christian name, as it is too often falsely called, inflictedon him in infancy, when he could not choose for himself; and would givehim free liberty to change it for one more to his taste, when he hadarrived at years of discretion.I have the same notion with respect to local names. Some at onceprepossess us in favor of a place; others repel us, by unluckyassociations of the mind; and I have known scenes worthy of being thevery haunt of poetry and romance, yet doomed to irretrievable vulgarity,by some ill-chosen name, which not even the magic numbers of a Halleckor a Bryant could elevate into poetical acceptation.This is an evil unfortunately too prevalent throughout our country.Nature has stamped the land with features of sublimity and beauty; butsome of our noblest mountains and loveliest streams are in danger ofremaining for ever unhonored and unsung, from bearing appellationstotally abhorrent to the Muse. In the first place, our country isdeluged with names taken from places in the old world, and applied toplaces having no possible affinity or resemblance to their namesakes.This betokens a forlorn poverty of invention, and a second-hand spirit,content to cover its nakedness with borrowed or cast-off clothes ofEurope.Then we have a shallow affectation of scholarship: the whole catalogueof ancient worthies is shaken out from the back of Lempriere's ClassicalDictionary, and a wide region of wild country sprinkled over with thenames of the heroes, poets, and sages of antiquity, jumbled into themost whimsical juxtaposition. Then we have our political god-fathers;topographical engineers, perhaps, or persons employed by government tosurvey and lay out townships. These, forsooth, glorify the patrons thatgive them bread; so we have the names of the great official men of theday scattered over the land, as if they were the real "salt of theearth," with which it was to be seasoned. Well for us is it, when theseofficial great men happen to have names of fair acceptation; but wo untous, should a Tubbs or a Potts be in power: we are sure, in a littlewhile, to find Tubbsvilles and Pottsylvanias springing up in everydirection.Under these melancholy dispensations of taste and loyalty, therefore,Mr. Editor, it is with a feeling of dawning hope, that I have latelyperceived the attention of persons of intelligence beginning to beawakened on this subject. I trust if the matter should once be takenup, it will not be readily abandoned. We are yet young enough, as acountry, to remedy and reform much of what has been done, and to releasemany of our rising towns and cities, and our noble streams, from namescalculated to vulgarize the land.I have, on a former occasion, suggested the expediency of searching outthe original Indian names of places, and wherever they are striking andeuphonious, and those by which they have been superseded are glaringlyobjectionable, to restore them. They would have the merit oforiginality, and of belonging to the country; and they would remain asreliques of the native lords of the soil, when every other vestige haddisappeared. Many of these names may easily be regained, by reference toold title deeds, and to the archives of states and counties. In my owncase, by examining the records of the county clerk's office, I havediscovered the Indian names of various places and objects in theneighborhood, and have found them infinitely superior to the trite,poverty-stricken names which had been given by the settlers. A beautifulpastoral stream, for instance, which winds for many a mile through oneof the loveliest little valleys in the state, has long been known by thecommon-place name of the "Saw-mill River." In the old Indian grants, itis designated as the Neperan. Another, a perfectly wizard stream, whichwinds through the wildest recesses of Sleepy Hollow, bears the hum-drumname of Mill Creek: in the Indian grants, it sustains the euphonioustitle of the Pocantico.Similar researches have released Long-Island from many of those paltryand vulgar names which fringed its beautiful shores; their Cow Bays, andCow Necks, and Oyster Ponds, and Mosquito Coves, which spread a spell ofvulgarity over the whole island, and kept persons of taste and fancy ata distance.It would be an object worthy the attention of the historical societies,which are springing up in various parts of the Union, to have mapsexecuted of their respective states or neighborhoods, in which all theIndian local names should, as far as possible, be restored. In fact,it appears to me that the nomenclature of the country is almost ofsufficient importance for the foundation of a distinct society; orrather, a corresponding association of persons of taste and judgment, ofall parts of the Union. Such an association, if properly constituted andcomposed, comprising especially all the literary talent of the country,though it might not have legislative power in its enactments, yetwould have the all-pervading power of the press; and the changes innomenclature which it might dictate, being at once adopted by elegantwriters in prose and poetry, and interwoven with the literature of thecountry, would ultimately pass into popular currency.Should such a reforming association arise, I beg to recommend to itsattention all those mongrel names that have the adjective New prefixedto them, and pray they may be one and all kicked out of the country.I am for none of these second-hand appellations, that stamp us asecond-hand people, and that are to perpetuate us a new country to theend of time. Odds my life! Mr. Editor, I hope and trust we are to liveto be an old nation, as well as our neighbors, and have no idea thatour cities, when they shall have attained to venerable antiquity, shallstill be dubbed New-York, and New-London, and new this and newthat, like the Pont-Neuf, (the New Bridge,) at Paris, which is theoldest bridge in that capital, or like the Vicar of Wakefield's horse,which continued to be called "the colt," until he died of old age.Speaking of New-York, reminds me of some observations which I met withsome time since, in one of the public papers, about the name of ourstate and city. The writer proposes to substitute for the present names,those of the State of Ontario, and the CITY OF MANHATTAN. I concur inhis suggestion most heartily. Though born and brought up in the city ofNew-York, and though I love every stick and stone about it, yet I donot, nor ever did, relish its name. I like neither its sound nor itssignificance. As to its significance, the very adjective new givesto our great commercial metropolis a second-hand character, as ifreferring to some older, more dignified, and important place, of whichit was a mere copy; though in fact, if I am rightly informed, the wholename commemorates a grant by Charles II. to his brother, the duke ofYork, made in the spirit of royal munificence, of a tract of countrywhich did not belong to him. As to the sound, what can you make of it,either in poetry or prose? New-York! Why, Sir, if it were to share thefate of Troy itself; to suffer a ten years' siege, and be sacked andplundered; no modern Homer would ever be able to elevate the name toepic dignity.Now, Sir, ONTARIO would be a name worthy of the empire state. It bearswith it the majesty of that internal sea which washes our northwesternshore. Or, if any objection should be made, from its not beingcompletely embraced within our boundaries, there is the MOHEGAN, oneof the Indian names for that glorious river, the Hudson, which wouldfurnish an excellent state appellation. So also New-York might be calledManhatta, as it is named in some of the early records, and Manhattanused as the adjective. Manhattan, however, stands well as a substantive,and "Manhattanese," which I observe Mr. COOPER has adopted in some ofhis writings, would be a very good appellation for a citizen of thecommercial metropolis.A word or two more, Mr. Editor, and I have done. We want a NATIONALNAME. We want it poetically, and we want it politically. With thepoetical necessity of the case I shall not trouble myself. I leave it toour poets to tell how they manage to steer that collocation of words,"The United States of North America," down the swelling tide of song,and to float the whole raft out upon the sea of heroic poesy. I am nowspeaking of the mere purposes of common life. How is a citizen of thisrepublic to designate himself? As an American? There are two Americas,each subdivided into various empires, rapidly rising in importance. As acitizen of the United States? It is a clumsy, lumbering title, yet stillit is not distinctive; for we have now the United States of CentralAmerica; and heaven knows how many "United States" may spring up underthe Proteus changes of Spanish America.This may appear matter of small concernment; but any one that hastravelled in foreign countries must be conscious of the embarrassmentand circumlocution sometimes occasioned by the want of a perfectlydistinct and explicit national appellation. In France, when I haveannounced myself as an American, I have been supposed to belong to oneof the French colonies; in Spain, to be from Mexico, or Peru, or someother Spanish-American country. Repeatedly have I found myself involvedin a long geographical and political definition of my national identity.Now, Sir, meaning no disrespect to any of our co-heirs of this greatquarter of the world, I am for none of this coparceny in a name that isto mingle us up with the riff-raff colonies and off-sets of every nationof Europe. The title of American may serve to tell the quarter of theworld to which I belong, the same as a Frenchman or an Englishman maycall himself a European; but I want my own peculiar national name torally under. I want an appellation that shall tell at once, and in away not to be mistaken, that I belong to this very portion of America,geographical and political, to which it is my pride and happiness tobelong; that I am of the Anglo-Saxon race which founded this Anglo-Saxonempire in the wilderness; and that I have no part or parcel with anyother race or empire, Spanish, French, or Portuguese, in either of theAmericas. Such an appellation, Sir, would have magic in it. It wouldbind every part of the confederacy together as with a keystone; it wouldbe a passport to the citizen of our republic throughout the world.We have it in our power to furnish ourselves with such a nationalappellation, from one of the grand and eternal features of our country;from that noble chain of mountains which formed its back-bone, and ranthrough the "old confederacy," when it first declared our nationalindependence. I allude to the Appalachian or Alleghany mountains. Wemight do this without any very inconvenient change in our presenttitles. We might still use the phrase, "The United States," substitutingAppalachia, or Alleghania, (I should prefer the latter,) in place ofAmerica. The title of Appalachian, or Alleghanian, would still announceus as Americans, but would specify us as citizens of the Great Republic.Even our old national cypher of U. S. A. might remain unaltered,designating the United States of Alleghania.These are crude ideas, Mr. Editor, hastily thrown out to elicit theideas of others, and to call attention to a subject of more nationalimportance than may at first be supposed.Very respectfully yours,Geoffrey Crayon.

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