that there are no proper names in the aboriginal languages of America.
Every Indian synthesis--names of persons and places not excepted--must
"preserve the consciousness of its roots," and must not only have a
meaning but be so framed as to convey that meaning with precision, to
all who speak the language to which it belongs. Whenever, by phonetic
corruption or by change of circumstance, it loses its
self-interpreting or self-defining power, it must be discarded from
the language. "It requires tradition, society, and literature to
maintain forms which can no longer be analyzed at once."[2] In 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 Müller, 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,