What's in a Name?

One of the lines that has to appear in the Policies that every school now has to have is the statement 'every child has the right to be called by the name he or she chooses.' Many of my contemporaries called me Norman at school because a bloke in the Vth thought that I looked like Norman Wisdom. it was quite a decision when after five years of answering to 'Luke' at home and 'Miller' (at least before entering the LVIth) to adults at school, I had to decide what I wanted new friends at University to call me. Most of my contemporaries seem to have done what I did and drop their school nicknames on leaving.

There were two Millers (we are not related) in Hailey in my year and so I had the privilege - as I thought it - of having initials after my name: Miller LJ. My spies in Lower School tell me that despite the universal use of Christian names, and even of nicknames (provided chosen by the child and not imposed) some of the young (at least the males of the species) still call one another by their Surnames. This raises for brothers the age old problem of having the same name. Nicknames and epithets come into play, but they sometimes resort to Mega and Minor (mixing Greek and Latin in a way that would once have attracted considerable opprobrium).

At first 'Major' and 'Minor' was the official way of distinguishing between brothers at Haileybury. One was Miller MA or Miller MI. The business of having initials came in around 1928 with the advent of two sets of brothers named Serjeant to Thomason (FRM 1923.3 and J 1924.3) and a pair named Minor to Trevelyan (R 1925.1 and B 1927.1). It was felt Sergeant Major and Minor Minor was just all too much to manage.

The younger Minor in fact became a Major, so in the end he was Major Minor. Sadly he was killed in action in the Middle East in 1942.