What’s in a name?…
Mr. and Mrs. Mantalini in Ralph Nickleby’s Office (source: Charles Dickens Page)
From Paul Toutonghi, a list of businessmen’s names from Dickens— the absolute master of the onomatopoeic insult:
Nickleby
Hawk
Squeers
Gride
Quilp
Gradgrind
Tigg
Pecksniff
Heep
Smallweed
Krook
Merdle
Flintwich
Casby
Fledgeby
Wegg
Hexam
Next? Perhaps lawyers? (Jaggers, Vholes, Tulkinghorn, Grewgious, Grimwig… )
As we thank our forebears for our family names, we might recall that it was on this date in 1817 that the New York Stock Exchange came in out of the cold. The origin of the Exchange dated back to May 17, 1792, when the Buttonwood Agreement was signed by 24 stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street (under a buttonwood tree). Then, on March 8, 1817, the organization drafted a constitution, renamed itself the “New York Stock & Exchange Board,” and moved into a rented room down the road at 40 Wall Street. (Today, the trading floor– one the NYSE’s several exchanges– is at 11 Wall Street.)
