our own
language, such forms may hold their places by prescriptive right or
force of custom, and names absolutely unmeaning, or applied without
regard to their original meaning, are accepted by common consent as
the distinguishing marks of persons and places. We call a man William
or Charles, Jones or Brown,--or a town, New Lebanon, Cincinnati, Baton
Rouge, or Big Bethel--just as we put a number on a policeman's badge
or on a post-office box, or a trademark on an article of merchandise;
and the number and the mark are as truly and in nearly the same sense
proper names as the others are.

[Footnote 1: Mill's Logic, B. I. ch. viii.]

[Footnote 2: Max Mueller, Science of Language, (1st Series,) p. 292.]

Not that personal or proper names, in any language, were _originally_
mere arbitrary sounds, devoid of meaning. The first James or the first
Brown could, doubtless, have given as good a reason for his name as
the first Abraham. But changes of language and lapse of time made the
names independent of the reasons, and took from them all their
significance. Patrick is not now, _eo nomine_, a 'patrician;' Bridget
is not necessarily 'strong' or 'bright;' and in the name of Mary,
hallowed by its associations, only the etymologist can detect the
primitive 'bitterness.' Boston is no longer 'St. Botolph's Town;'
there is no 'Castle of the inhabitants of Hwiccia'
(_Hwic-wara-ceaster_) to be seen at Worcester; and Hartford is neither
'the ford of harts,' (which the city seal has made it,) nor 'the red
ford,' which its name once indicated.

In the same way, many Indian geographical names, after their adoption
by Anglo-American colonists, became unmeaning sounds. Their original
character was lost by their transfer to a foreign tongue. Nearly all
have suffered some mutilation or change of form. In many instances,
hardly a trace of true original can be detected in the modern name.
Some have been separated from the localities to which they belonged,
and assigned to others to which they are etymologically inappropriate.
A mountain receives the name of a river; a bay, that of a cape or a
peninsula; a tract of land, that of a rock or a waterfall. And so
'Massachusetts' and 'Connecticut' and 'Narragansett' have come to be
_proper names_, as truly as 'Boston' and 'Hartford' are in their
cis-Atlantic appropriation.

The Indian languages tolerated no such 'mere marks.' Every name
_described_ the locality to which it was affixed. The descrip