Man and His...

Man and His Names

So did some of our American last names derive from Europeans not knowing how to differentiate from each other and not being able to clarify who is who? Let’s say there are two Toms in an English village back in the early 1200’s and someone yells out, “Tom just got attacked by a wild boar!” Well, now two families who have a Tom are really upset when only one has to be. This is a problem, yes; but a pretty preventable one if these folks had last names to specify which Tom has pancreatic bleeding from a wild boar tusk. What if there’s a village with people who aren’t creative enough to make up a new name and only know names currently in existence? To prevent a problem of misplaced concern, parents probably specified who is who in a family with like names by adding possession to their kin. Let’s give the example of a father and son with the same name of Tom. The father, Tom, can boastingly name his son, Tom’s Son. Now there is Tom and Tom’s Son.

I would usually place an exclamation mark at the end of a word describing a successful end-result at this point but not everyone has one son, especially in an era where most men want to carry their lineage and carry it far. So, what if there is a second boy, did they call him Tom’s Son Number Two? They could have, but that would be even weirder. Maybe they added a second well-known name to Tom’s Son -like David or Henry. Now there is David, Tom’s Son. This sort of name makes sense when Tom’s sons are being introduced. But as the young boys venture out on their own they will begin to encounter problems when introducing themselves. “Hi, I’m Henry, Tom’s Son!” The person on the receiving end of this introduction is inevitably going to be confused/not know/not care who Tom is. So now David, Tom’s Son is going to have to figure out how to introduce himself and get a normal reaction while still respecting his father by keeping his old man’s name. Although writing was practiced mainly by nobles and the wealthy at this point in history, Henry, Tom’s Son would have to eventually write down his own name during his lifetime. As this realization materializes into the acting of endorsing, David will modify his name to simply David Tom'sson, like the Hawai'ians do. And as the world’s denizens, like Tom’s adventurous sons, travel the following years many variations of Henry and David Tomsson will form. The damn French will shorten it to Tomson and once Tom’s sons travel further, the Germans will complicate the name by adding an h, making them Thomssons and the Greek love p’s; so they will make David, Tom’s son, Thompson.

Many decades later different complications will arise in the form of re-instituting the original Tom’s Son’s father, Tom. There will be people like Tommy Thompson, the US Secretary of Health & Human Services, holding Tom’s original name while flaunting his ancestor’s name within in the same name; but the difference is, this time when someone yells out, “Tommy Thompson just got attacked by a wild boar!” only one family is upset while the rest of the people around are only confused as to why there’s a wild boar loose in D.C.

You’re Welcome.