What’s in a name

Recently I was reminded of two subjects, dear to my heart – but then I suppose most subjects are dear to my stretched interests:

Snobbery and the double-barrelled name. Not that they are, in my mind, related in any way.

I love double-barrelled names; particularly when they have a wonderfully melodic ring to them. Last year I proposed to someone (and I hadn’t proposed for a hand in marriage for at least 20 years) with the most wonderful double-barrelled name; I haven’t had an answer yet; at least he is still talking to me. 

Ours would be a match made in interglobal heaven. I’d get my name and be made an honest woman of and he’d get a wife he doesn’t need.

Our marriage would be bound to work since, divided by one ocean, we’d never see each other; apart maybe from going for the odd walk along the beach during a brief annual vacation or visiting Paris and Rome together. Thus everyday strife, and upsetting dinner party guests by inappropriate comments (mine), would never lead to any huff or puff to be resolved before bedtime.

I’d love to tell you the name since there is beauty in its ethnic origins, telling a whole story about his parentage; and it’d work so well with my first name. However, worshipping at the shrine of my one and only god, that of discretion, I can’t.

Anyway, to make a long winded intro, into an even longer story: I come from a country – and this is in reponse to your blog, Paul – where snobbery doesn’t enter the equation. You are judged on merit, mostly the ability to earn money and looking after your own; and if you move in right and left circles then education will count too (by which I do not mean to be able to say that you went to Eton).

Many of my countrymen absolved themselves from their titles; some because they needed the money, most because they did NOT want to be set apart from what the English call so condescendingly “the man on the street”. Thus I lost part of my beautiful maiden name, or so family folklore goes. I was lucky to pick up a simple, yet unusual for these shores, four letter surname by dint of marriage to an Englishman. Yes, four letters and I still have to spell it every time I pick up the damn phone: “Dock Dee O Cee Kay.” 

Snobbery – thy name is England. Not for nothing is this the country where class is still an issue, where – whilst calling each other by first names before we have been barely introduced – titles count and OBEs et al are given out as cheaply as sweets at the corner shop. The Emperor’s New Clothes, one of the most instructive fables of any time, no more so than ours: A ruler strutting around in his underpants, the real idiots being his entourage admiring his non existing new wardrobe.

I’d love to go on and I will – another time.

U