What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Names can be tricky things, at once central and parenthetical to one’s identity. Recanting his confession, John Proctor, the protagonist of Arthur Miller’s allegorical play The Crucible, declared that “I cannot have another [name] in my life!... I have given you my soul; leave me my name! How may I live without my name?” Shakespeare, conversely, famously wrote that “a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet…”
As for myself, one of my earliest memories is of becoming hysterical when my father, who had been in the habit of playfully referring to me as “Buster Brown,” called me by my given name. Through sobs, I insisted that my name was not, in fact, Benjamin.
“What do you think your name is?” my father asked, perhaps concerned, more likely bemused.
“Buster!” I wailed.
Since then, I have been called many things (though never, of course, late for dinner). To my students, I am usually “Mr. J,” sometimes “Mr. Jewiss” and for one student who never could understand the purpose of honourifics, just “Jewiss.” To telemarketers and other cold-callers, I am usually “Mr. Jewish” and was recently “Jewitt” for an entire week. In the Canadian Armed Forces, I am officially “Lieutenant Jewiss” but more often than not simply referred to by my cadets as “Sir.” To family, I am almost invariably “Benjamin,” to friends and coworkers exclusively “Ben,” to my younger sister “Benny” and to my older sister, for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, “Bean Boy.” For a short period in university, I tried to give myself the nickname “Foxe”: it didn’t stick.
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| Variations of Leonard's name as they appear on various Legion applications, 1946-1977, |
As someone with such a tumultuous history surrounding my various names, I believe that the inconsistency of Alf Leonard’s name adds depth and mystery to his already curious tale. From 1946, the time of his application to the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League, to his death in 1982, his name appears on official documents in at least four variations, some of them quite sensical and some of them less so. In 1946, he is “A. LEONARD.” In 1965, he went by “Thomas Alfred” Leonard. Twelve years later, on his Legion Life Membership nomination form, his initials are reversed: “A. T. Leonard.” His burial permit, marking the end of his life, records his name as “LEONARD, Alfred.”
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| Leonard's entry, highlighted in yellow, in the 1910 US census. |
At the beginning of his life, however, his name is less certain. His birth record was curiously incomplete, as we will see below, and so the earliest official record in which he appears is the Thirteenth Census of the United States Census. The 13th census, conducted by the Census Bureau on 15 April of 1910, determined the population of the United States to be slightly more than 92 million, less than a third of what it is today. At that time, New York was the most populous state with over nine million residents: with such a population today, it wouldn’t even make the top ten. California, now the most populous state with nearly 40 million residents, was a distant twelfth in 1910 with less than two and a half million Californians, slightly more than modern-day New Mexico (which was, in 1910, still two years away from statehood). Massachusetts -- in 1910, the sixth state in the Union by population, now the fourteenth -- was home to approximately 3.3 million Bay Staters, including William Henry Leonard of Williamstown, his wife Grace Mary Leonard, née Wheeler, and their seven children: Charles, Bessie, Frederick, John, William Jr., Helen and, of course, Alfred.
In 1910, Alfred was already nine years old, nearly ten. At the time of his birth, for reasons unknown, it seems as though he didn’t have a name: on the official birth record, the surname Leonard is recorded, but the first name is written in a different hand at a different time. John Jewitt of the Pratt Library “wonder[s] whether Mr. Leonard did not have a name immediately at birth, & then didn't realize until much later that the birth record needed to be corrected…” Almost half a century after his birth, the record was completed, the name “Alfred” being added "per affidavit, Feb 10, 1945.”
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Leonard's record of birth. "Alfred," written in a different hand  than the original entry, was added "per affidavit, Feb 10, 1945.” |
Jewitt suggests that “in 1945 Mr Leonard was applying for a benefit, or involved in some other official business, & needed an official birth record at that point,” adding that “This may not have been an unusual practice [as] There is one other entry like this on the same page.” Leonard’s attestation of his name in 1945 may imply that he was in or near his birthplace at that time -- though anecdotal records suggest that he was in Canada by the mid-1930s -- or simply that he required documentation of his birth at that time. His British Empire Service League application proves that he was in Nakina in 1946, and so it may be that a birth certificate or other document was required for his immigration to Canada, perhaps even for an application for citizenship.* One can only speculate.
Unlike John Proctor, Leonard did have another name in his life, or at least variations on the same name. In 1910, he was known as Alfred, and this was his attestation in 1945 as well. At some point in his life, he gained the name Thomas, which seems to have flipped periodically from the middle name to the first. His lonely, weathered grave marker simply calls him “LEONARD.” To those who knew him in Nakina, he was simply and universally “Alf.”
* It is not known at this time if Leonard became a Canadian citizen -- 1946, in fact, marks the advent of "Canadian citizenship," Canadians being British subjects until then -- and it may be the case that allegiance to the Crown was a prerequisite of Legion membership.
