Why do we say Diaghilev but John Lennon? Why do we say Nijinski but Gary Cooper? Why do we say Picasso but Marilyn Monroe? Dante but George Eliot? Chekhov but Graham Greene? And so on. Is there any rule behind it?
A partial answer: some single name might not always be distinctive enough -- which Eliot? (Or even Elyot?) Are playwrights more likely to be single names? Ibsen, Strindberg, Pirandello, Beckett, Pinter . . . .
I asked a similar question while teaching the other day -- why are some poets identified by initials and others not? ED, TSE, EP, WCW, LZ, but Walt Whitman, Basil Bunting, Marianne Moore, and so on. (The initials are Dickinson, Eliot, Pound, Williams, and Zukofsky.)
Thanks for both your comments. I feel in my bones that there is more to this than meets the eye, that there is indeed a certain bias towards not just playwrights but also opera singers, ballerinas and artists (Caruso, Nureyev, Picasso). The use of the surname rather than the christian name reflects, in my opinion, that opera, dance, drama and art are not really "popular" or "mainstream" in the way that films, pop music and novels are. Hence "Marilyn" and not "Monroe".
But that's not the whole story. Single naes are particularly common among FOREIGNERS, i.e. non anglophones. Even with Shakespeare we are at least tempted to say "William Shakespeare". We would be less inclined to say "Miguel de Cervantes. Could this be because we don't know the person's first name or because, even if we do know the first name, we are not sure how to pronounce it?
BUT
ReplyDeleteMarilyn Monroe is, actually, most commonly referred to as Marilyn. One of the few who is immediately recognised by sole use of given name.
The others who you single-name have surnames which are uncommon. Not many Dantes around.
Or Garbos. But lots of Greenes and Coopers.
A partial answer: some single name might not always be distinctive enough -- which Eliot? (Or even Elyot?) Are playwrights more likely to be single names? Ibsen, Strindberg, Pirandello, Beckett, Pinter . . . .
ReplyDeleteI asked a similar question while teaching the other day -- why are some poets identified by initials and others not? ED, TSE, EP, WCW, LZ, but Walt Whitman, Basil Bunting, Marianne Moore, and so on. (The initials are Dickinson, Eliot, Pound, Williams, and Zukofsky.)
Thanks for both your comments. I feel in my bones that there is more to this than meets the eye, that there is indeed a certain bias towards not just playwrights but also opera singers, ballerinas and artists (Caruso, Nureyev, Picasso). The use of the surname rather than the christian name reflects, in my opinion, that opera, dance, drama and art are not really "popular" or "mainstream" in the way that films, pop music and novels are. Hence "Marilyn" and not "Monroe".
ReplyDeleteBut that's not the whole story. Single naes are particularly common among FOREIGNERS, i.e. non anglophones. Even with Shakespeare we are at least tempted to say "William Shakespeare". We would be less inclined to say "Miguel de Cervantes. Could this be because we don't know the person's first name or because, even if we do know the first name, we are not sure how to pronounce it?