Don’t call me an icon. I’m just a mother trying to help.
—Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–97) English Royal, Humanitarian, Peace Activist
One of the greatest artifices the devil uses to engage men in vice and debauchery, is to fasten names of contempt on certain virtues, and thus fill weak souls with a foolish fear of passing for scrupulous, should they desire to put them in practice.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
And we were angry and poor and happy, and proud of seeing our names in print.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary. When we take away the right to an individual name, we symbolically take away the right to be an individual. Immigration officials did this to refugees; husbands routinely do it to wives.
—Erica Jong (b.1942) American Novelist, Feminist
Named softly as the household name of one whom God had taken.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
A good name, like good will, is attained by many actions and may be lost by one.
—Unknown
Call a spade a spade.
—Robert Burton (1577–1640) English Scholar, Clergyman
A virtuous name is the precious, only good, for which queens and peasants’ wives must contest together.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
Favor or disappointment has been often conceded, as the name of the claimant has affected us; and the accidental affinity or coincidence of a name, connected with ridicule or hatred, with pleasure or disgust, has operated like magic.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.
—Milan Kundera (b.1929) Czech Novelist
If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
A man’s name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Some to the fascination of a name, surrender judgment hoodwinked.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.
—English Proverb
We do what we must, and call it by the best names.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Nicknames stick to people, and the most ridiculous are the most adhesive.
—Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796–1865) Canadian Author, Humorist, Businessperson, Judge
He lives who dies to win a lasting name.
—Henry Drummond
A person with a bad name is already half-hanged.
—Common Proverb
A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
If names are not correct, language will not be in accordance with the truth of things.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.
—Burton Hillis (William E. Vaughan) (1915–77) American Columnist, Author
A good name lost is seldom regained.—When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever.
—Joel Hawes
I came to live in a country I love; some people label me a defector. I have loved men and women in my life; I’ve been labeled “the bisexual defector” in print. Want to know another secret? I’m even ambidextrous. I don’t like labels. Just call me Martina.
—Martina Navratilova (b.1956) Czech-born American Sportsperson
Miss: A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Misses (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. If we must have them, let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to MH.
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1913) American Short-story Writer, Journalist
I don’t like your miserable lonely single “front name.” It is so limited, so meager; it has no versatility; it is weighted down with the sense of responsibility; it is worn threadbare with much use; it is as bad as having only one jacket and one hat; it is like having only one relation, one blood relation, in the world. Never set a child afloat on the flat sea of life with only one sail to catch the wind.
—D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English Novelist, Playwright, Poet, Essayist, Literary Critic
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love…
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet…
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
No orator can top the one who can give good nicknames.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.
—Chinese Proverb
Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame, the power of grace, the magic of a name.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
A name truly good is the aroma from virtuous character; it is a spontaneous emanation from genuine excellence.—Such a name is not only remembered on earth, but it is written in heaven.
—James Hamilton (1814–67) Scottish Protestant Minister
Once you label me you negate me.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
A nickname is the hardest stone that the devil can throw at a man.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Names, says an old maxim, “are things.”—They certainly are influences.—Impressions are left and opinions are shaped by them.—Virtue is disparaged, and vice countenanced, and so encouraged by them. The mean and selfish talk of their prudence and economy; the vain and proud prate about self-respect; obstinacy is called firmness, and dissipation the enjoyment of life; seriousness is ridiculed as cant, and strict morality and integrity, as needless scrupulosity; and so men deceive themselves, and society is led to look leniently, or with indifference, on what ought to be sharply condemned.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
I shall write a book some day about the appropriateness of names. Geoffrey Chaucer has a ribald ring, as is proper and correct, and Alexander Pope was inevitably Alexander Pope. Colley Cibber was a silly little man without much elegance and Shelley was very Percy and very Bysshe.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.
—Marshall Mcluhan (1911–80) Canadian Writer, Thinker, Educator
With the vulgar and the learned, names have great weight; the wise use a writ of inquiry into their legitimacy when they are advanced as authorities.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann (1728–1795) Swiss Philosophical Writer, Naturalist, Physician
Better to see the face than to hear the name.
—Unknown
I think a child should be allowed to take his father’s or mother’s name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.
—James Joyce (1882–1941) Irish Novelist, Poet
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
—Unknown
What signifies knowing the names, if you know not the nature of things.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The invisible thing called a Good Name is made up of the breath of numbers that speak well of you.
—E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax (1881–1959) British Politician, Political leader
The future has many names: For the weak, it means the unattainable. For the fearful, it means the unknown. For the courageous, it means opportunity.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Good name, in man or woman, is the immediate jewel of their souls.—Who steals my purse steals trash; but he that filches from me my good name, robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The names that do the serious damage are the ones we call ourselves. The stereotypes we give ourselves are the ones that matter in the long run, not the ones imposed on us by other people.
—Judith Rich Harris (1938–2018) American Psychologist
Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth’s marvels, beneath the dust of habit.
—Salman Rushdie (b.1947) Indian-born British Novelist
Whatever you lend let it be your money, and not your name. Money you may get again, and, if not, you may contrive to do without it; name once lost you cannot get again, and, if you cannot contrive to do without it, you had better never have been born.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
I have a passion for the name of “Mary,” For once it was a magic sound to me, And still it half calls up the realms of fairy, Where I beheld what never was to be.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet