CHAPTER V--THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE.
'How many Caesars and Pompeys, by mere inspirations of the names, have been rendered worthy of them?
And how many are there, who might have done exceeding well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been totally depressed and Nicodemus'd into nothing ?'--_Tristram Shandy_, vol.I.chap xix.
Such were the views of the late Walter Shandy, Esq., Turkey merchant.

To the best of my belief, Mr.Shandy is the first who fairly pointed out the incalculable influence of nomenclature upon the whole life--who seems first to have recognised the one child, happy in an heroic appellation, soaring upwards on the wings of fortune, and the other, like the dead sailor in his shotted hammock, haled down by sheer weight of name into the abysses of social failure.

Solomon possibly had his eye on some such theory when he said that 'a good name is better than precious ointment'; and perhaps we may trace a similar spirit in the compilers of the English Catechism, and the affectionate interest with which they linger round the catechumen's name at the very threshold of their work.

But, be these as they may, I think no one can censure me for appending, in pursuance of the expressed wish of his son, the Turkey merchant's name to his system, and pronouncing, without further preface, a short epitome of the 'Shandean Philosophy of Nomenclature.' To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself felt from the very cradle.

As a schoolboy I remember the pride with which I hailed Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le Diable as my name-fellows; and the feeling of sore disappointment that fell on my heart when I found a freebooter or a general who did not share with me a single one of my numerous _praenomina_.