But in the introductory remarks, he writes some things about naming conventions and name usage that I find quite interesting. So I've translated a few paragraphs:
(I hope this excerpt is short enough to be covered by Fair Use.)The correct treatment of personal names is one of the most important ways to test the quality of history books and historical writings, because few things say as much about a society as its naming conventions - someone who doesn't know by what names historical figures called each other has not listened to them carefully enough. That goes especially when dealing with rulers and aristocrats, who are notorious for their complicated ornamental names for good reasons; their naming systems contain a whole worldview, and so it seems to make sense when modern historical writings often enough adapt such names to our very different view of the individual. And in fact one can't really do without a certain amount of adaptation. For instance, if one wants to speak about the Spanish ambassador at the court of Louis XV, one can hardly say Don Fernando de Silva y Álvarez de Toledo Beaumont Portocarrero Enríquez de la Cerda Acevedo y Zúñiga Fonseca y Ayala, Duque de Huescar, Conde de Galve etc. every time, especially since this list of inherited families is more a collection of property deeds than a name, anyway.
But there are not just practical reasons to adapt the names a bit more, than, for instance, many screen- or novel writers do, who have people appointed or arrested "in the name of His Majesty King Louis XV of France". For people who know the field, that sounds about as authentic as a conversation in the present day would be in which someone would talk about "the Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany Dr. Angela Dorothea Merkel née Kasner (CDU)". Of course that does not mean that one should never list full titles or names - it is often necessary for purposes of historical explanation and therefore occurs in this book, too.
But in all eras, the everyday usage of names was very different from listing the full version. Therefore, to know this everyday usage is not just useful for those who want to recognize such persons in contemporary texts. Above all, it tells us a lot about which traits of a person were seen as how important or unimportant in which day and age, and therefore mentioned or left out. The way how, consequently, the aristocracy of the early modern period always saw feudal and functional titles as more important than, for instance, given names (and which excessive forms that could take) will be explained in more detail in Chapter 12.
Here it will be sufficient to note that we will consciously do the unavoidable simplification of names in accordance with the everyday usage of the time in question. To use Angela Merkel as an example once more, one might imagine what modernizing history books might call her in a hundred years. Angela Kasner, because the victory of moderate feminists will have completely abolished the use of married names? Angela Herlindstochter [Herlindsdaughter], because somewhat more radical feminists will have taken over? Or, on the contrary, Frau Prof. Dr. Joachim Sauer, because there will have been a comeback of the Patriarchy? Fortunately, that doesn't matter for our question, because all three versions have one thing in common, no matter how likeable or unlikeable we might otherwise find them - they give a wrong impression of the society in which the Chancellor lived.
To avoid comparable mistakes, we will therefore call all historical figures, at least from the second time we mention them onward, by the shortest version of the name or title which was already used as the short form of their name during their live time. When talking about the many aristocrats who, especially in Western Europe, used geographical feudal titles, we will use those - so we will, for instance, call Henri-Charles de La Trémoille, Prince de Talmond simply "Talmond", Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton simply "Grafton", and call Stéphanie-Félicité du Crest de Saint-Aubin, Comtesse de Genlis "Madame de Genlis". We will only use family names as short names in cases where, as, for instance, in Germany, the feudal titles were identical with the family names. The complete names of all those people will consequently only appear in the text in exceptional cases, but can be looked up in the index of names at the end of the book, which also contains all lifespans, the page numbers of all appearances, and the birth names of women.
So what do you think? Do you agree with his views on names and how to use them? And what interesting naming conventions or ways of using names from various languages and societies, past or present, do you know about?
