ONAMASTICS

The study of names has held my interest for some time. And that's what onamastics is.

In a study conducted back in the 80's, a group of well qualified, trained writing teachers were given a set of fifth grade essays to evaluate according to content, grammar, and style. What they didn't know was the set of essays they received had been previously graded by another set of teachers and had been evaluated as C papers. Nothing special, just ordinary fifth grade essays, rated as average.

All that had been added to the papers the group received was first names. Sure enough, the papers came back with grades from A to E. Even after allowing for different grading styles, it was determined that the papers with the cute names such as Stacey and Justin got the A's and B's. The papers with the names James and Charles still got the C's. And fifth grade Edgar and Herman got the D's and even E's.

It's been revealed that restaurants beginning with C is the most popular. The names Marilyn Monroe, rather than Norma Jean Baker, and John Wayne, rather than Francis, well I've forgotten his last name, were much preferred stage names. Mickey Mantle and Ronald Reagan were two other names that onamastic experts have said made them more popular.

Sports stars are filled with colorful, good sounding names such as Santana Moss, Torry Holt, Hines Ward. Howard Cosell could make Oakland Alameda County Coliseum dance off his tongue.

Onamastics is not just a study of connotative good sounding names either as alluded to in the writing sample. But I don't know about names that are duplicated like Eddie Edwards, Marky Mark, Duane Duane, Haris Harris.

But you know names are important when God gave Adam the task of naming the animals. So when selecting a name for a child, a pet, or even a 911 street name, choose wisely.