Sarah, Jane and Ann to Denote Year in Which the Bearer Was Born "T have a passion for the name of Mary," sang Byron; and many a poetical New Yorker of a certain age will experience a cuddly feeling at the news that the old names are coming in again, states the "New York Sun." Meaning girls' names, of course. Boys' names don't change much, but the girls fluctuate in names just as they do in emotions, bless their hearts!
It'll be interesting to see whether the new-born generations of Sarahs, Janes and Anns develop any tricks not known to the Ermintrudes, Clarisses and Ysobels of to-day. Also whether the lips of an Eliza can taste any sweeter than those of an Yseult. Thoughtful men will be inclined to doubt it and to quote Juliet's justly celebrated line to Romeo on the subject of names. But, of course, every sportsmanlike son of Adam will stand ready to be convinced by experiment, But parents are entitled to a word of warning on the subject of christening their baby girls in accordance with the name fashion of the day.
You might just as, well tag them with the year of their birth, for when the innocent little dears grow up their names will proclaim the period to which they belong. Then when poor Jane is required to name the year of her birth she won't be able to say "1928" with quite the same confidence that she would have if she did not know that there had been a run on Janes and Marias in 1922, but that in 1928 those mames were taboo and mothers were resurrecting Gwendolyn and Gladys.
Speaking of Gladys, it was considered an awfully artificial, affected name when it broke loose among our sisters and our cousins and our aunts in the later Victorian period. It may have been Ouida who started the Gladys craze, or it may have been Miss Braddon, the author of Lady Audley's Secret," and scores of other novels that thrilled the boarding school girls of her time. Anyhow, Gladys came as a disagreeable shock and an almost universal frivolity to the sober Victorians, who clung to such respectable combinations as Eliza Jane, Mary Ann, Sarah "Marie and so on.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.