they would ask the advice of their friends, and spend days in poring over lists of names which are published in order to aid them in their choice.
A name once assumed and registered cannot be laid aside and another substituted. So most feel it is important to select a name that they will always feel pleasure in bearing, and which will make them more attractive and be useful to them in their future career.
As most of the literature of the Colymbians, when not indigenous, is derived from English sources, the names they chiefly affect are familiar English ones; but some prefer French or German names, others ancient classical names, and some even select the quaint names of their ancestral Colymbians. But whatever names they adopt are sure to be highly euphonious, as is to be expected among a race where music is so universally and so thoroughly cultivated. Indeed, many of the ladies choose appellations made up of some two of the names of the musical notes, as Laré, Mido, Fala, Simi, Solla, &c.
Surnames or family names are often such as are familiar to us, as Smith, Brown, Jones, &c., showing the English origin of the family's founder. But some of the surnames are derived from the race that originally peopled these islands. These native names usually terminate in "ik" or "ob," "Ngasik," "Mburob," and so on. The surname can be changed at will; and as the ancient names are considered unfashionable, very few families or individuals retain them. They are ever ready to drop them for some high-sounding English or French name, which they have got out of books. So there are Stanleys, Montmorencys, De Guesclins, Montagues, &c., who, one
