What’s in a Name?

On the opera scene, a certain Helen Porter Mitchell decided to change her name. Nope! Neleh – a reversal of her given name didn’t cut it as Neleh Mitchell. So she decided diminutise her Christian name, drop her surname and take on a new one with an exotic sound derived form her birthplace.

Thus we had Nellie Melba.

Nellie being the familiar for Helen and Melba from Melbourne.

Peach Mitchell or Mitchell toast doesn’t have the same ring as Melba.

If the name Shickelgruber makes you want to giggle; perhaps Hitler, as in Adolf, will make you think again.

Josif Dzhugashvili could have cut it as a Russian Orthodox parish priest, yet it was as Josef Stalin he achieved infamy.

To be fair, a name change doesn’t signify success, people such as Ray Martin, Jennifer Hawkins, Alan Jones, Stephanie Rice and Chris Bath haven’t changed theirs and they’re doing okay, and in today’s multicultural society it doesn’t matter. Paul Bongiorno, Helen Kapalos, just to cite a couple of examples.

Talking about things multicultural, continental names have such a nice ring to them yet to translate them back to English, the name loses it.

One could say “Cobblers” to racing greats Michael or Mel Schumacher and be perfectly correct. Shoemaker or cobbler is the English translation.

Julius Church wins the hearts of millions of women worldwide. We know and love him better as Julio Iglesias. Iglesias being Spanish for church.

Ferrar, translated to English is good old Smith. The late actor José Ferrar in reality was plain old Joseph or Joe Smith.

Would you prefer to be seen behind the wheel of a Smiths or Ferrari – same thing.

Joe Green and Jim Jameson wrote some great operas. Never heard of them?

Whoops, their Italian names are Guiseppe (Joseph) Verdi (Green) and Giacomo (James) Puccini (Jameson). Puccini is derived from the curious Italian system of adding suffixes and then chopping of the root word. Thus Giacopucci becomes Pucci or Puccini, both from James. Confused? Then so must be the Italians with our grammatical intricacies.

So! If your names makes you cringe, you have the right to change it to suit your career and personality unlike the rose, which remains forever a rose, and no one has come up with a better name — thank goodness.