The distinctive quality of a name
It tells you who you are. But needn’t tell anyone else.
Click above to listen to this piece as a talking head.
“It’s a first name with us.”
“Is it really? Oh, you don’t say.”
“Yes, quite common in fact.”
“Right, of course … Tell me, if my first name had been Jan, do you think that upon being asked for my name, I would have said, ‘Jan’?”
My name has been confusing Belgium for 30 years, and everyone it confuses thinks they’re the first to have pointed it out.
He smiled. I added, “I would’ve if Napoleon had never been here. He’s the one that made you all take nanamen.”
My Dutch’d slipped into German, and I winced inwardly. Nachname is German for surname. Nach means after, so it’s the name that comes after the name, which is then called the forename: Vorname. But it was too late. I’d been subliminally quality-stamped IGNORAMUS.
Dutch is a Germanic language and reflects these German terms: voornaam and achternaam, achter meaning after or behind, like Anne Frank’s achterhuis, the house behind, where she hid from Nazis, till she was betrayed, that is; by a fellow Jew, by all accounts. A man of the law, no less.
I wonder how often, had she survived, she’d have been challenged about her name.
“Frank.”
“That’s a first name with us.” …
Further to my Germanic slip-up, my interlocutor at the hardware store made the label IGNORAMUS an indelible one, and corrected me: “Familienaam.” Also good for surname, but I didn’t want to correct him on everything.
“Look under G. maybe they think Graham is a Familienaam.”
“Isn’t it?”
I drew some breath. “Yes. But not in my case.”
The Two Ronnies once did a sketch:
How many children?
Three.
Names?
Er … George. Bernard. Shaw.
Shaw?
Positive.
There it was: my order for screen door screening.
A triumphant: “A-ha! Take this sheet to the side exit, where they keep all ordered goods.”
“Rightie-ho! Thank you …”
His name badge said Hendrik and I hesitated as to whether I should say Hendrik or Mr Hendrik and left it at you.
Over at the side exit was Wim, who gladly took my order sheet and slipped down the aisle where ordered goods are kept for collection. This gave me ample time, truly ample time, to inspect the G-clamps, a rubber-grip torch (seventeen euros forty-nine, a bit steep, I thought, to see the light), and a display of chrysanthemums brought in for the All Saints’ Day holiday on 1 November). Muriel Spark’s character Miss Jean Brodie called them, in her prime, such serviceable flowers, and mine will likewise serve.
They’ll stand sentinel at the front door, just visible from the military cemetery opposite my house, so the souls who rest there know I am thinking of them. Until the 11th, when I plan to motor down to Albert to pay homage to my late great-uncle, Harry. He could ride a horse in full armour across the River Thames and was killed … in a war. Just like so many young, virile, wonderful people are being killed now. In wars. Do you think it makes a difference to anyone? Whether the war was Great, or not? Shame on them. Those who kill. Glory to them. Those who kill.
Harry was killed in the Great War, in 1915; the year his nephew was born, who he never knew in this life. Who was named Henry, either by coincidence, or in honour of our valiant soldier, or in honour of his loving father. Unconfusingly, perhaps all three.
Fourteen days’ service is quite long enough for a chrysanthemum, even if it isn’t for a young soldier ready to be persuaded to die for his country.
I was running out of things to browse at. I’d done the drill bits, and the Coca-Cola 24-packs were a bit pricey at fourteen ninety-nine. I cast a glance in Wim’s “orders” aisle and he wasn’t to be seen.
And then, all of a sudden, there he was, behind me, with my screen door screening in his hand.
“Eight ninety-nine, please.”
I paid, and left with a smile, the chrysanths, and the screening, which will go into Muriel’s moustiquaires, which I’m building for her, at about the same pace as Wim found the screening.
I had wanted a gauze, metal, to lay on top of the garage door drain, for leaves and the like. The old one is tatty and I thought, after 45 years, could do with replacement. But, even having compromised and taking two lengths to cover the full width, it seems I could only order it online and then have it delivered. Two pieces of gauze for nine euros each, and then eight euros delivery on top. It just seems disproportionate. If it’d actually been the width of the garage door, I’d have maybe done it, but not for a compromise solution, not eight euros.
I try where I can to support local stores and not go sailing up the Amazon. But, on Amazon, whilst you can also pay hefty delivery charges, you don’t need to travel five kilometres to the store, stand and wait having a discussion about your last name, or wait browsing, counting the minutes till they find the goods because they were never laid aside in the first place.
First name in Dutch is voornaam and last name is achternaam. But they would write my name Vincent Graham, because they regularly put the first name last and the last name first. It makes me wonder why I even bother. It’s at worst disingenuous and at best … confusing. I tried to do it that way once, and people still assumed Vincent was the first name. Even my credit card company.
There is a story that the U.S. state of Washington, as opposed to Washington, D.C., was so named after the first U.S. president. The initial proposal had been to call it Columbia, after the River Columbia, which runs down its border to Oregon (passing through Vancouver, of course).
“Oh, no!” came the protests. “We cannot call it Columbia! That would so obviously confuse people with the District of Columbia.” So, Washington it was. And is. Except it’s not. It’s always: Washington State. A State of confusion.
Y’know, I once actually travelled from Vancouver to Vancouver, and, for the six-hour journey by train, immigration office, and coach, it took 16 hours. No one was confused by that.