“_Souvent_,” says Brântome, “ceux qui portent le nom de leurs ayeuls, leur _ressemblent volontiers, comme je l'ay veu observer et en discourir à aucuns philosophes._” He makes this remark after observing that the Emperor Ferdinand was named after his grandfather Ferdinand of Arragon, and Charles V. after his great grandfather Charles the Bold. But such resemblances are as Brântome implies, imitational where they exist. And Mr. Keightley's observation, that “a man's name and his occupation have often a most curious coincidence,” rests perhaps on a similar ground, men being sometimes designated by their names for the way of life which they are to pursue. Many a boy has been called Nelson in our own days, and Rodney in our fathers', because he was intended for the sea service, and many a seventh son has been christened Luke in the hope that he might live to be a physician. In what other business than that of a lottery-office would the name Goodluck so surely have brought business to the house? Captain Death could never have practised medicine or surgery, unless under an alias; but there would be no better name with which to meet an enemy in battle. Dr. Damman was an eminent physician and royal professor of midwifery at Ghent in the latter part of the last century. He ought to have been a Calvinistic divine. The Ancients paid so great a regard to names, that whenever a number of men were to be examined on suspicion, they began by putting to the torture the one whose name was esteemed the vilest. And this must not be supposed to have had its origin in any reasonable probability, such as might be against a man who being apprehended for a riot, should say his name was Patrick Murphy, or Dennis O'Connor, or Thady O'Callaghan; or against a Moses Levi, or a Daniel Abrahams for uttering bad money; it was for the import of the name itself, and the evidence of a base and servile origin which it implied. “_J'ai été tousjours fort etonné_,” says Bayle, “_que les familles qui portent un nom odieux ou ridicule, ne le quitent pas._” The Leatherheads and Shufflebottoms, the Higgenses and Huggenses, the Scroggses and the Scraggses, Sheepshanks and Ramsbottoms, Taylors and Barbers, and worse than all, Butchers, would have been to Bayle as abominable as they were to Dr. Dove. I ought, the Doctor would say, to have a more natural dislike to the names of Kite, Hawk, Falcon and Eagle; and yet they are to me (the first excepted) less odious than names like these: and even preferable to Bull, Bear, Pig, Hog, Fox or Wolf.