西方人的名字---文化知识

  When Chinese English-learners ponder the choice of a Western name for themselves, the first thing they normally want to know is what each possible name means. Oddly, of all the factors governing the selection of names in the West, meaning is probably the least important. This curiosity is exercised mainly by Westerners interested in knowing what their name happens to signify, and much less by parents seeking a good name for a child.

当中国的英语爱好者考虑给自己起个英文名字时，他们首先想知道的就是那些可选的名字所代表的意义。但是挺怪的是，在西方，在选择名字时要考虑的诸多因素中，意义恐怕是最不重要的一点。只是那些对自己名字的意义感兴趣的西方人才有探究的好奇心，而父母在给孩子 起名时则很少考虑名字的意义。

   The factors that weigh most heavily in the choice of a name are sound, fashion, mental associations and family habit. Sound is preeminent: Nobody wants to impose a clumsy-sounding name on a child. Thus parents seek personal names that go well with the child's surname, making a euphonious whole. This involves not only consideration of the full form of the personal name, but also of the likely nickname. After all, that is the name the child will hear most frequently in casual modern American life, often to the virtual exclusion at the official full form.

西方人起名时最重要的考虑因素是发音、时尚、联和和家庭习惯。发音是最重要的：没有人想给孩子起个拗口的名字。于是家长就会挑个与姓搭救得很好，整体听起来很悦耳的名字，这不仅在起全名时这样考虑，起爱称时也是如此。毕竟，爱称是孩子在现代美国生活非正式场合中最经常听到的，而正式的全称几乎根本听不到。

In America fashion is also extraordinarily important. The basic names that people give their children remain fairly stable from century to century, but in recent decades certain names have appeared suddenly, become amazingly common, and then after a few short years have fallen almost entirely out of use. A couple of current examples are the name "Brandon" for boys and "Ashley" for girls--wildly popular names that have no history in America. Very often names of such meteoric popularity spring from Hollywood or the silly daytime soap operas that so many Americans follow from day to day. Such fashionable new girls' names as Kimberly, Tiffany, Britany, Megan, Heather and Kayla are widely thought to sound good, though some people, obviously not the majority, regard them as minor but disquieting evidence of how deep the impact of TV and films has been on modern Americans. It is interesting that boys are much less likely to receive this sort of briefly fashionable name.

在美国，时尚也特别重要。人们给孩子起的一些基本名字多少个世纪以来相当稳定，但在最迫几十年，有些名字突然出现了，令人吃惊地普及开来，而短短几年以后，又几乎完全不用了。当前流行的几个名字，比如，布兰登是男孩名，阿诗丽是女孩名----这些名字非常流行，但在美国历史上并没有用过。这类昙花一现的名字往往来自好莱坞或是无聊的每日肥皂剧，很多美国人一天天跟着看。金伯丽、蒂芬妮、布丽特妮、梅根、海瑟尔、凯拉这类时髦的新的女孩名字被广泛地认为很好听，虽说有些人，显然是数数人，认为这些名字事虽小，但却是令人担心的一个例证：电视和电影对现代美国人的冲击有多深。有趣的是，男孩的这类名字要少得多。

The associations a name has in the mind of parents are also of capital importance. A certain name may call up an image of a beloved or loathed relative or public figure. The name Adolf or Adolph, fairly common among Roman Catholic German-and French-Americans early in this century, disappeared from birth certificates after the 1930s. Bernard, though the name of a great saint, makes poorly educated Americans think of a breed of large dog. Such associations are especially influential in defining the popularity of boys' names. Quite a few frequently encountered male names evoke a positive masculine image. The name Matthew, and even more its nickname Matt, for instance, suggest a trustworthy, responsible, honest man.

名字在父母心中所具有的联想在起名时也很重要。某个名字可能会让你想起一个所爱的或讨厌的亲友或是一个公众人物。在本世纪初，阿道夫这个名字在信奉天主教的德国人和法裔美国人中用得相当普遍，但在30年代后， 这个名字就从出征证上消失了（阿道夫是希特勒的名）。伯纳德，这个名字虽然是一个伟大的圣徒的名字，但是文化不高的美国人会由此想到某一品种的大狗，这类的联想在决定男孩的名字是否受欢迎时特别重要。不少经常见到的男性名字能唤起正面的男性形象。比如，马修这个名字，及至其爱称马特，会让你想起值得信任的、负责任的、诚实的男人。

How names acquire these associations is a complicated subject. It is notable that in America, where upper middle-class status is largely dependent on professional education, doctors, lawyers, engineers and other middle-class types favor names for their children, especially their sons, that have a dignity based on centuries of use. Such people tend to eschew suddenly popular names drawn from the world of entertainment. Thus the name one bears can sometimes reflect social class, which in turn reflects education. Although religious associations can certainly play a role in the choice of a name, they are more important in establishing the basic list from which names are drawn. Parents who name their son, say, Michael may be thinking of the fiery archangel who appears in hundreds of glorious works of art, but it is more probable that they are remembering a friend or favorite relative whom they hope their offspring will resemble in character; or they may feel that Michael (or Mike) has the proper tone, or that it goes well with their surname.

名字是如何具有了这类联想是个复杂的问题。值得注意的是，在美国这个上层中产阶级的地位天很大程度上取决于所受的专业性教育的国家，医生、律师、工程师及其他中产阶级的人喜欢孩子的名字（尤其是男孩的名字）具有因使用了几个世纪而带来的一种尊严。这些人往往会避开那些娱乐圈里突然出现的名字。因此，一个人的名字有时会反映出一个人的社会地位，也反映出所受教育的程度。

虽然宗教的联系在起名字时肯定起着作用，但宗教在建立起名之源的基本名字系列时则更重要。比如，父母给予孩子起名迈克尔，也许是想到了曾出在几百种文艺作品中的火光闪闪 的天使长，但更大的可能性则是家长要纪念一个朋友或最喜爱的亲友，希望自己的后代在性格上与他们相像；也许他们是觉得迈克尔（或迈克）叫着好听，或者是这个名字与姓搭配起来很好。

Finally, family habit may determine the choice of a name. In many countries, and in many American families, new parents are urged to name their children after older relatives. The patterns differ: nephews can be named for uncles, sons for fathers, grandsons for grandfathers, etc. One effect of this is severely to restrict the number of names that occur in a given family, and occasionally to produce many people with the same name. Fortunately the use of middle names tends to mitigate this tendency-often it is just one of the two personal names that is borrowed from a relative. In any case, many families are proud of these repeated names. In America, naming sons after fathers is common in families of all social levels, but it is mostly in the upper class that one finds families where the identical name has been passed from father to son for three, four or more generations. Such individuals must be distinguished by placing Sr (=senior, the elder) and Jr (=junior, the younger) or the Roman numberals II, III or IV after their names, as in European royal families.

最后，家庭习惯也会决定名字的起法。在很多国家以及很多美国家庭，新父母受到敦促，要以老辈亲友的名字给孩子起名，其类型各异：侄子可以用叔叔的名字，儿子可用父亲的名字，孙子可用祖父的名字，等等。这种作法所带的结果之一就是严格限制了某一家族名字的数量，有时会出现很多人名字相同的现象。所幸的是，中间名的使用往往会减弱这一趋势----通常只借用一个亲友的第一名与中间名中的一个，家长还需给孩子 起一个新名。不管怎么说，很多家言族以这些重复使用的名字而自豪。在美国，以父亲的名字给孩子起名，在社会各个阶层都很普遍，但最多的是在上层社会，人们会看到相同的名字从父亲传到儿子连传三代、四代以至更多代。这些人必须在名字后面加上“老”、“小”或用罗马数字II、III、IV，加以区别，就像欧洲皇室一样。