A few thoughts on choice and selection: tartan, clans, etc.

[rondo]

Thanks for the entertaining read, Mac.
Rondo

[OC Richard]

First the fascinating thought-provoking essay, then the hilarious replies! The best laugh I've had in a while.

On the topic of onomastics, I might point out that I, like many Catholics, have four names, my three 'original' names plus one Confirmation name.

Here in SoCal there is a large Mexican-American population and many of these people can effortlessly roll off their entire names, which are several names long, evidently incorporating the various female lines.

My direct male-line family, which came to the Virginia colony from England in 1762, maintained for many generations an interesting onomastic tradition, using the maiden names of women who married into the clan as first names of male children. Thus we have had, since the 18th century and throughout the 19th century, men named Pemberton Cook, Stuart Cook, Clay Cook, Green Cook, and so on. Had that tradition continued into recent generations my father would have been named Cooper Cook and I would have been named Stanley Cook, but alas! the system was abandoned in my immediate family.

The book Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways In America by David Hackett Fischer (which I highly recommend to anyone wishing to understand the cultural makeup of the United States) devotes a chapter to the 'naming ways' of each of the four mass migrations. He describes a naming tradition identical to the one long practiced in my family as being distinct to Virginia.

In the Delaware first names were rigidly perpetuated (the first-born male child received the first name of the mother's father, the second-born male child the first name of the father's father, the third-born male child received the first name of the father; the first-born female child the first name of the father's mother, and so forth. So, the same few first names were used again and again through the generations.

Back to tartans, I too have an embarrassment of riches as to all the various tartans I could choose were I not restricted to the direct male line:

Stuart
Cooper
Cornish National
Irish National
Cavan

not to mention American tartans such as

West Virginia
California

[TheOfficialBren]

I keep it nice and simple for my brain and my wallet.

Two kilts. One nice one (family tartan), one casual knock-about (universal tartan).

I don't feel the urge to build a private tartan library. Different strokes for different folks.