The Eponyms of `Desiderius Erasmus'

Abstract

If, as Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus instructed the schoolboys of Europe, names are indices of reality, what truth of nature or character did he perceive in his own name? The inventive author who invested the act of naming with gravity and wit, punning Folly from More, dubbing his colloquial characters aptly as ‘Cocles’ or ‘Eusebius', reviewed and revised his own name with humanist concern for the alignment of verba with res. As a student he dutifully signed himself ‘Herasmus,’ later dropping the initial consonant, and still later regretting that he had not adopted the more liquid ‘Erasmius.’ ‘Who ever heard of anyone being called “Love“?’ he protested. Rather than the adjectival form i.e., ‘amiable,'would have been more courteous and agreeable he thought.

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