' `Ragg' has not an ugly sound in itself. Mr. Arnold was
jarred merely by its suggestion of something ugly, a rag, and by the
cold brutality of the police-court reporter in withholding the prefix
`Miss' from a poor girl who had got into trouble. If `Ragg' had been
brought to his notice as the name of some illustrious old family, Mr.
Arnold would never have dragged in the Ilyssus. The name would have
had for him a savour of quaint distinction. The suggestion of a rag
would never have struck him. For it is a fact that whatever thing may
be connoted or suggested by a name is utterly overshadowed by the
name's bearer (unless, as in the case of poor `Ragg,' there is seen to
be some connexion between the bearer and the thing implied by the
name). Roughly, it may be said that all names connote their bearers,
and them only.
To have a `beautiful' name is no advantage. To have an `ugly' name is
no drawback. I am aware that this is a heresy. In a famous passage,
Bulwer Lytton propounded through one of his characters a theory that
`it is not only the effect that the sound of a name has on others
which is to be thoughtfully considered; the effect that his name
produces on the man himself is perhaps still more important. Some
names stimulate and encourage the owner, others deject and paralyse
him.
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