Chapter CXIV: Section VI: Names of Thankfulness

A great race of Christian names were fabricated, in Latin, after the pattern of the Greek Theophilus, Theophorus, &c., though hardly with equal felicity, and chiefly in the remoter provinces of the West, where Latin was, probably, a matter of scholarship. Thus, in the province of Africa, we find, just before the Vandal invasion, Quodvultdeus (what God wills) and Deogratias (thank God), neither of which had much chance of surviving. Deusvult (God wills), Deusdedit (God gave), and Adeodatus, lived nearer to Italy; indeed, Deusdedit was a pope. Adeodatus or Deodatus (God given) was a Gallic saint, called, commonly, St. Die, and with the other form, Donum Dei, continued in use for children whose birth was hailed with special joy. When Louis VII. of France at length had a son, after being “afflicted with a multitude of daughters,” he called him Philippe Dieudonné; but this grateful name was discarded in favour of the imperial Auguste, by which he is distinguished. Deodati di Gozo, the Knight of Rhodes who slew the dragon, better kept his baptismal name, and it often occurs in Italian history, and is an Italian surname. Deodatus is an occasional name only found in England. The old French knightly name, Dudon, called in Italian romantic poetry Dudone, is, probably, a contraction of Dieudonné, as the surnames Donnedieu, Dondey, Dieudé, can hardly fail to be. Deicola (a worshipper of God) was invented for a pupil of St. Columbanus, who followed his master to France, lived as a hermit, and became the patron-saint of Franche Comté, where boys are still called, after him, Diel or Diez, and girls, Dielle. There is likewise an Italian name Diotisalvi, or God save thee, only to be paralleled by some of our Puritan devices.

To these may be added Donatus (given), which evidently was bestowed in the same spirit, though not mentioning the giver. It occurs, like most of this class, in the African province, and belonged to the bishop of Numidia, whose rigour against the penitent lapsed made him the founder of the exclusive schismatical church named after him. Another Donatus was St. Jerome’s tutor; and, before his time, several martyrs had been canonized by his name, and it seems to have prevailed in Gaul and Britain. In Wales it was pronounced Dynawd; and, by the time St. Augustine came to England and disputed with the Cymric clergy, the history of the word had been so far forgotten that Dynawd, abbot of Bangor-Iscoed, was Latinized into Dionothius. Donat, or Donath, is found in Ireland, but it was probably there adopted for the sake of its resemblance to the native Gaelic Don, meaning brown-haired. Donato, likewise, at one time prevailed in Italy, and produced the frequent surname, Donati. Donnet was a feminine in Cornwall in 1755.

Desiderius, or Desideratus, was of the same date, and given, in like manner, to express the longing desire or love of the parents towards the child. In fact the word _desiderium_, in Latin, more properly means affection than wish, as we explain its derivatives in modern languages. The Desiderius of history was a brother of Magnentius, the opponent of Constantine, and the Desiderius of the calendar was a bishop of Bourges, in the seventh century; but, in the mean time, the last Lombard king of Italy either had become so Italianized as to adopt it, or else used it as a translation of one of the many Teuton forms of Leofric, Leofwin, &c., for he was known to Italy as Desiderio, to France as Didier; and his daughter, whom Charlemagne treated so shamefully, was Desiderata, Desirata, or Desirée. The latter has continued in use in France, as well as Didier and Didiere; and the masculine likewise appears in the Slavonic countries as Zljeko, and among the Lithuanians as Didders or Sidders.

The most learned men were not perfect philologists in the sixteenth century, when they played the most curious tricks with their names. Erasmus began life as Gerhard Gerhardson, signifying, in fact, firm spear, a meaning little suited to his gentle, timid nature. He was better pleased to imagine _ger_ to be the German all, and _ard_ to be _erd_ (earth or nature); of this all-nature he made out that affection embraced all, therefore he called himself Desiderius, and then, wanting another equally sounding epithet, he borrowed Erasmus from the Greek, where it had named an ancient bishop. It came from ἐράω (to love); and thus Desiderius Erasmus, the appellation by which he has come down to posterity, was an ingenious manufacture out of the simple Gerard.[78]

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Footnote 78:

Pott; Butler; Sismondi; _Life of Erasmus_.

SECTION VII.—_Crescens, &c._

The verb _cresco_ (to increase or grow) has descended into all our modern languages. It has formed the French _croître_ (to grow), our _increase_ and _decrease_, and our _crescent_. Its participle was already adopted as a name in St. Paul’s time, at least it is thus that his companion, Κρήσκης, is rendered, who had departed to Dalmatia; and a later Crescens is said to have brought about the death of Justin Martyr, in the second century. The occasion, however, of the modern name was one of the many holy women of Sicily—Crescentia, a Christian nurse, who bred-up her charge, the infant Vitus, in her own faith, fled with him to Italy, and was there seized and martyred, under Diocletian. Crescenzia, and the masculine, Crescenzio, prevail in both Naples and Sicily; and the election of the Angevin-Sicilian Carobert, to the throne of Hungary, carried the former thither as Czenzi; whence Bavaria took it as Cresenz, Zenz, Zenzl.