is Eman ed Deen
"faith-of-religion," although he has neither faith nor religion.

Among the boys' names are Selim, Ibrahim, Moosa, Yakob, Ishoc, Mustafa,
Hanna, Yusef, Ali, Saieed, Assaf, Giurgius, Faoor, and Abbas. I once met
a boy at the Cedars of Lebanon, who was named Jidry, or "Small-Pox,"
because that disease was raging in the village when he was born. It is
very common to name babies from what is happening in the world when they
are born. A friend of mine in Tripoli had a daughter born when an
American ship was in the harbor, so he called her America. When another
daughter was born there was a Russian ship in port, so he called her
Russia. There is a young woman in Suk el Ghurb named Fetneh or Civil
War, and her sister is Hada, or Peace. An old lady lately died in Beirut
named Feinus or Lantern. In the Beirut school are and have been girls
named Pearl, Diamond, Morning Dawn, Dew, Rose, Only one, and Mary Flea.
That girl America's full name was America Wolves, a curious name for a
Syrian lamb!

Sometimes children are named, and if after a few years they are sick,
the parents change their names and give them new ones, thinking that the
first name did not agree with them. A Druze told me that he named his
son in infancy _Asaad_ (or happier) but he was sickly, so they changed
his name to _Ahmed_ (Praised) and after that he grew better! He has now
become a Christian, and has resumed his first name Asaad.

I once visited a man in the village of Brummana who had six daughters,
whom he named _Sun_, _Morning_, _Zephyr breeze_, _Jewelry_, _Agate_, and
_Emerald_. I know girls named Star, Beauty, Sugar, One Eyed, and
Christian Barbarian. Some of the names are beautiful, as Leila, Zarifeh,
Lulu, Selma, Luciya, Miriam and Fereedy.

All of the men are called Aboo-somebody; _i.e._ the father of somebody
or something. Old Sheikh Hassein, whose house I am living in, is called
Aboo Abbas, _i.e._ the father of Abbas, because his eldest son's name is
Abbas. A young lad in the village, who is just about entering the
Freshman class in the Beirut College, has been for years called Aboo
Habeeb, or the father of Habeeb, when he has no children at all. Elias,
the deacon of the church in Beirut was called Aboo Nasif for more than
fifty years, and finally in his old age he married and had a son, whom
he named Nasif, so that he got his name right after all. They often give
young men such names, and if they have no children they call them