英语泛读教程4课文翻译

The taking of Americanized or partially Americanized names by immigrants is one of our characteristic phenomena. Sometimes this has resulted from a desire to escape from a real or fancied stigma of association with a foreign background. Sometimes it has resulted merely from nuisance of trying to maintain an unusual name. Sometimes, especially in the earlier years, it merely happened because no one knew or cared much how the name was spelled. The taking of names by

immigrants, like the taking of names by Negroes, has generally worked toward a leveling. Whether a man is trying to escape into the crowd or to become one of the group, he is likely to choose a common name. For this reason the number of people called by the traditional British names has risen higher in proportion.

移民们起一个美国化或半美国化的姓是一个典型的现象。有时，这是由于想摆脱和外国背景联系产生的现实存在的或想象的污点。有时纯粹是由于有一个不同寻常的姓太麻烦所致。而有时，特别是早些时候，只是因为人们不知道或者不在意姓的拼写，就发生了这样的事情。移民们的取名，同黑人取名一样，一般来说趋向于一致。不管他是想隐遁于人群中，或是想成为集体的一员，常常是取一个普通的姓。由于这个原因，用传统英国姓称呼的人 的人数比例上升了。

On the other hand, this leveling process has failed to eliminate very many

names, and the number of names in Great Britain or any other country. Thus many a German Mueller has become a mere Miller, but some of them still remain, and others have the form Muller; the result is thus three names in the United States.

另一方面，这种趋向一致的过程并没有使大量的姓消失，也没有减少英国或其他国家姓的数量。很多姓缪勒（Mueller）的德国人改成了米勒(Miller)，但很多人仍然姓缪勒，另有一些人则选用穆勒(Muller)的形式。结果是这三种姓在美国都有。

The total number of family names in this country has been the subject of a careful study by Elsdon C. Smith, for his Story of Our Names. In the Chicago telephone book he estimated that there were 154 750. In arriving at this figure he counted all variations in spelling. He estimated further that there must be about 350 000 different family names in the whole United States. Even if we divide this figure by three to make allowance for mere variations of spelling, the number remains tremendous.

艾尔斯顿 C. 史密斯在《名字的故事》一书中，仔细地研究了美国姓氏的总数。他估计，在芝加哥市电话簿中有154750个姓。这个数字包括拼写不同的姓。他进而估算出，全美国一定会有350000个不同的姓。即使我们把这个数字除以三，以排除掉那些只是拼写不同的姓，这仍然是一个庞大的数字。

With given names, as compared with family names, the Americans have been much more creative. This could be taken for granted. In the vast majority of instances, a man passes his family name to his children without change and without even considering the possibility of change. But someone, commonly a parent, chooses a particular name for each child. Usually this name is a

traditional one, but sometimes it may be \

the storehouse of the past is so jammed with thousands of examples that the problem of choice becomes almost a matter of creation. Therefore, while family names remain stable over generations and through centuries, given names have been subject to fashions and fads, and in the course of a century the \pattern\

相比之下，美国人在起名时要比对待他们的姓表现出多得多的创造性。这可以看成是理所当然的事情。绝大多数情况下，一个人把自己的姓原封不动地传给孩子，根本不考虑是否可能要改变。但人们，通常是父母，总是要为每一个孩子起一个独特的名子。他们通常会起一个传统的名，有时也会“造”一个。然而，即使是传统的名， 历史的仓库也塞满了成千上万个例子，选择的问题就几乎是创造。因此，美国人的姓经久不变，代代相传，名却跟随时尚潮流而变化，而在一个世纪过程中，一个社区的“取名模式”会发生很大的变化。

Our history of given names can begin with Raleigh's colony of 1587, even though it died out and left no descendants. Among the ninety-nine men and boys of that group the commonest names were John (23), Thomas (15), William (10) , Henry (7), Richard (7), George (3), and Robert (3). From the same colony we have only sixteen women's names preserved, too small a number for good statistics. There was, as it happened, no Mary among them. But there were three Janes, two Elizabeths, and the other names were common enough, such as Agnes, Eleanor, Margaret, and Rose.

我们关于名的历史可以追溯到1587年罗利开创的殖民地，尽管它后来消亡了，没有留下后代。在那99名男子和少年中，最多的名是约翰（23个），托马斯（15个），威廉姆（10个），亨利（7个），理查德（7个），乔治（3个）和罗伯特（3个）。在这同一个殖民地中，我们只有16个女性的名保存下来，这个数目太少，无法进行科学的统计。其中没有玛丽这个名，但有三个珍妮，两个伊丽莎白。其它的名也很常见，象阿格尼斯，伊莲娜，玛格丽特，和罗丝。

We must, then, return to the list of men to arrive at the name pattern. All the commoner names of these first colonists are in the English tradition. Both John and Thomas are eventually Hebrew, and are from the Bible. John, from the

beloved disciple, had been a favorite name for centuries all over Christendom. Thomas, also the name of a disciple, had become a popular and peculiarly

English name since the twelfth century, because of the hero-martyr St. Thomas of Canterbury. William, Henry, Richard, and Robert were old Germanic names that had been popularized in England by the Norman conquerors. All except Robert had been borne by English kings, and this had probably helped their popularity. George, a Greek name, owed its place to the fact that St. George had been regarded as the patron saint of England since the fourteenth century. This English tradition of naming was maintained in the southern colonies for a century or more － and, we may add, for women as well as for men.

这样，我们现在就必须回过来从这些男子的名中推测当时的取名模式。在这些第一代殖民者中，所有较常见的名都是英国传统的。约翰和托马斯都来源于希伯来语，取自《圣经》。约翰来自受人爱戴的信徒，几个世纪以来这个名在基督教世界一直很受欢迎。托马斯也是一个信徒的名，由于坎特伯雷的殉教者圣托马斯，它自12世纪起就成为一个流行的英国名。威廉姆、亨利、 理查德和罗伯特都是日尔曼人名，诺曼征服者使之在英国流行。除了罗伯特外，它们都曾是英国国王的名，这也许促使了它们的流行。乔治是一个希腊名，它能够流行是因为自14世纪以来圣徒乔治就被认为是英国的保护神。这种取名的英国传统在南部的殖民地保持了一个多世纪——可以补充说，不论是用作男名还是女名都是如此。

A more peculiarly American development arose in the Puritan colonies of New England. Originally, the name pattern did not differ greatly from that of the southern immigrants. The ten commonest names of those coming to Massachusetts were in order: John, William, Thomas, Richard, Robert, Edward, Samuel, George, James, and Francis.

一种更为特别的美国式发展，起源于新英格兰的清教徒殖民地。最初，起名的方式同南部移民没有什么差别，抵达马萨诸塞的移民中最常见的名依次是：约翰，威廉，托马斯，理查德，罗伯特，爱德华，塞缪尔，乔治，詹姆斯和弗朗西斯。

The appearance of the single Old Testament name of Samuel alone distinguishes this list from the southern one by giving it a slight Old Testament flavor. But the sons of these immigrants bore very different names. The proportion of

Biblical names soared upward, especially those of favorite characters from the Old Testament. Among boys born in Boston between 1640 and 1699 John was still the favorite name. But after it came in order: Samuel, Joseph, Thomas,

Nathaniel, Benjamin, James, Jonathan, William, and Richard. Thus the first eight names have all become Biblical, and the once popular William and Richard have been shoved into ninth and tenth place. The second ten names show the Old Testament influence even more strongly: David, Jacob, Josha, Issac, Peter, Ebenezer, Ephraim, Edward, Abraham, and Daniel.

取自《旧约》的唯一的名塞缪尔的出现，使这个名单不同于南部的名单，具有一点《旧约》味。然而北部移民的后代们却有很不一样的名。取自《圣经》的名大大增加，特别是那些《旧约》中很受欢迎的人物的名。1640到1699年间出生在波士顿的男孩的名中，约翰仍然是最流行的。但以下依次是：塞缪尔，约瑟夫，托马斯，纳撒尼尔，本杰明，詹姆斯，乔纳森，威廉和 理查德。处于前8位的名都取自于《圣经》，而一度很流行的威廉和理查德被挤到了第九和第十位。 其次十个名更能说明《旧约》的影响：大卫，雅各布，约书亚，以撒克，彼德，埃比尼泽，伊弗雷姆，爱德华，亚伯拉罕和丹尼尔。 With women, also, the use of traditional but non-Biblical names such as Joan, Agnes, and Margaret fell off, and some of them even vanished completely. Girls born in Boston in the seventeenth century were most commonly named, in order: Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah, Abigail, Rebecca, Ruth, Lydia, Anna, and Martha. These are all Biblical names, and four of them are from the Old Testament. Some of the traditional favorites managed to appear in the second ten, where we find Ann, Margaret, Joanna, and Jane mingled with Mehitabel, Susannah, Deborah, Bethiah, Rachel, and Dorcas.

至于女性，使用传统的但非《圣经》的名，象琼，阿格尼斯和玛格丽特等减少，有的甚至完全消失。17世纪出生在波士顿的女孩，通常起的名依次是：玛丽，伊丽莎白，萨拉，汉娜，艾比盖尔，吕贝卡，露丝，丽迪娅，安娜和玛莎。这些都是《圣经》中的名，其中四个来自《旧约》。一些传统的流行名出现在后十位，有安，玛格丽特，乔安娜，还有珍妮，同梅海塔布尔，苏珊娜，黛博拉，贝瑟尔，雷切尔，和多加这些名排列在一起。 Also fairly common for women in the Puritan colonies － totaling about 15 percent － were \the commonest, but we find also Patience, Thankful, Desire, Experience, Charity, Hope, Grace, and many others. Names of this kind, such as Grace, are to be taken in their spiritual or theological sense, not their physical one. Some of the names are presumably to be construed as verbs rather than as nouns, and may be taken as standing for some Biblical admonition such as, \gifts\Hope-for, Constant, Tremble, Love, Wrestling.

在清教徒殖民地里，常见的女名还有那些关于抽象品质的“有意义”的名，约占15%。其中，梅茜（Mercy, 仁慈）是最普遍的，其它还有贝雪丝（Patience, 忍耐），萨克弗（Thankful, 感恩），笛萨尔（Desire, 渴望），以克佩里丝（Experience, 经验），查里提（Charity, 慈善），荷蒲（Hope, 希望），格雷丝（Grace, 优雅）等。象格雷丝（优雅）这样的名， 用的是精神和神学的意义，而不是体态的意义。一些名要当作动词而不是名词来理解，可以看成是代表某个宗教教训，例如，“渴望精神才能”

（Desire spiritual gifts）。同样的情况也出现在男名中，不过不太多，有：英克莱斯（Increase,增加），荷蒲弗（Hope-for,希望），康斯坦丁（Constant, 坚决），特莱普尔（Tremble, 颤抖），洛弗（Love, 爱），莱塞林（Wrestling, 搏斗）等。

Of all the Biblical names the most interesting is Ebenezer. It is the name of a place in the Old Testament, and seems to have been used as a personal name first in New England. It became one of the commonest names there, and remained so for more than a century.

在这些取自《圣经》的名中，最有趣的是埃比尼泽。这是《旧约》中的一个地名，最初用作人名似乎是在新英格兰。在那里，一个多世纪以来，它成为最常见的名之一。 Although the increased use of Old Testament and of meaningful names was a feature of Puritanism in England also, it was more strongly developed in New England. From those colonies it spread by migration, and our history has become spotted with men bearing such colourful names as Increase, Israel, Zachary, Abraham, Preserved, and Gamalief. It has affected our legendry, and given us \\Ephraim\

(2200 words)