James Hogg
Hogg / the Ettrick Shepherd
A Shepherd Named Hogg
In Scots usage, a hogg is a young sheep, especially one between its first and second shearing. It is an unusually exact pastoral word to fi…
Poets by Name
Strong aptronym
When a poet’s name seems to have anticipated the work.
Connections
Christopher Smart
Smart
A Name for Quickness
In ordinary English, smart means quick-witted, clever, and mentally alert. It can also suggest brightness or stylish precision: a word well…
William Oldys
Oldys / “oldies”
The Antiquary Named Oldys
To an English reader, Oldys conspicuously begins with old: the word for what has survived from an earlier time. The final -ys makes it a su…
Frances E. W. Harper
Harper
The Poet as Harper
Harper is an occupational surname: traditionally, a person who plays the harp. The word carries an old musical resonance, and in literary c…
William Whiting
Whiting
A Fish Name on Hymn Waters
A whiting is a familiar sea fish, a name long established in English for a marine creature of North Atlantic and European coastal waters. A…
F. S. Flint
Flint
A Flint Strike of Imagism
Flint is the familiar name for a very hard stone, historically valued for its sharp edge and for the sparks it can strike from steel. In En…
Ezra Pound
Poundian
The Weight of the Name
Pound is an everyday English word for a unit of weight, as well as a verb meaning to strike repeatedly or forcefully. It also evokes counti…
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth
A Journey in the Name of Truth
Sojourner Truth is a deliberately meaningful adopted name. A sojourner is a person who travels or stays away from home for a time; truth na…
Fernando Pessoa
Pessoa = “person”
The Poet Named “Person”
In Portuguese, pessoa means “person.” It is an ordinary, deeply fundamental word: a human being, an individual, someone with an identity an…
Oscar Wilde
Wilde
The Civilised Uses of WILD
Wilde is immediately legible to English readers as a spelling of wild: untamed, unconventional, excessive, or delightfully beyond the respe…
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Blunt
The Point of “Blunt”
Blunt is a transparent English word: literally dull-edged or not sharply pointed, but far more commonly, of speech, plain, abrupt, and unva…
Siegfried Sassoon
Sieg-fried ("victory-peace")
Victory, Peace, and the Bitter Interval
Siegfried is a Germanic name conventionally understood through Sieg, “victory,” and Fried, “peace.” It carries an almost too-neat pairing o…
George Crabbe
Crabbe → crab
The Crab’s Unvarnished Eye
Crabbe is, to modern eyes and ears, essentially crab with an older-looking final e. The animal is instantly recognisable: hard-shelled, sid…
Carl Sandburg
Sand + burg
Sand and the City
Sandburg reads transparently as a compound: sand plus burg, a Germanic element meaning a town, borough, or fortified place. It is a name ma…
Thomas Hood
Hood
A Name Worn Close to Life
Hood is a transparent English word: a covering for the head, or a part of a garment that covers it. The word belongs immediately to the pra…
Charlotte Brontë
Brontë = thunder
Thunder in the Surname
Brontë derives from the Greek brontē, meaning “thunder.” The diaeresis in the family name signals that the final e is sounded: Bron-tay, ra…
Emily Brontë
Brontë = thunder
A Surname with Thunder in It
Brontë derives from the Greek brontē, meaning “thunder.” It is an unusually audible surname: even before its etymology is supplied, its clu…
Walter Savage Landor
Savage
The Civilised Savage
Savage, Landor’s inherited middle name from his mother’s family, is also the familiar English adjective for something fierce, untamed, or v…
Bliss Carman
Bliss
A Poet Named Bliss
Bliss is a transparent English word for deep happiness, blessedness, or spiritual delight. As a literary name it arrives with an unusually…
Richard Lovelace
Lovelace
A Name Made for Courtly Devotion
Lovelace almost announces a literary love lyric before a line has been read. In modern English ears, it divides irresistibly into love and…
James Joyce
James Joyce — joy
Joy, Heard in the Name
To an English-speaking reader, Joyce immediately carries the sound and suggestion of joy. It is a particularly resonant surname for an auth…
William Shakespeare
Shake-spear / Shakespearean
The Spear in the Playhouse
“Shakespeare” is transparently legible to modern English eyes as shake spear: a verb of vigorous movement joined to a weapon. The historica…
Max Ehrmann
Ehrmann (“honest man”)
The Counsel of an “Honest Man”
Ehrmann is a German surname meaning roughly “honest man”: Ehre denotes honour, while Mann means man. Like many inherited surnames, it need…
John Greenleaf Whittier
Greenleaf
A Green Leaf in New England
Greenleaf is an unusually vivid middle name: a plain English compound of colour, plant life, and the living world. Even before one reaches…