---- Rectory, Hereford.
Your correspondent ERICA will not, I think, find an instance in this
country of a person having more than one Christian name before the last
century. Charles James Fox and William Wyndham Grenville are the two
earliest instances I can find. It is trivial but curious to observe, that
in the lists given at the beginning of the _Oxford Calendar_ of the heads
of colleges and halls from their several foundations, the first who appears
with two Christian names is the venerable president of Magdalene College.
Antony Ashley Cooper is only a seeming exception; his surname was
Ashley-Cooper, as is proved by his contributing the letter _a_ to the word
_cabal_, the nickname of the ministry of which he formed a part. We find
the custom common enough in Germany at the time of the Reformation, and
still earlier in Italy. I apprehend that its origin is really in the _tria
nomina_ of Roman freemen. It was introduced into this country through our
royal family, but I am not aware of any prince who had the benefit of it
before Charles James.
I apprehend the passage which ERICA quotes from Lord Coke has not the
significance which he attributes to it. A man can have but one Christian or
baptismal name, of however many single names or words that baptismal name
may be composed. I have spoken in this letter of two Christian names, in
order to be more intelligible at the expense of correctness.