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1. In the Cratylus, where several etymologies do indeed appear fanciful nowadays.

2. Jean Bouchet, Annales d’Acquitaine.

3. Outremer (‘Overseas’) was the collective name of French Crusader kingdoms in the Middle East.

4. There are as many spellings of the name of the great medieval constable, Bertrand Du Guesclin, as that of Shakespeare.

5. Cf. Lucian of Samosata, Lawsuit between the Vowels.

6. Virgil, Aeneid, XII, 764.

7. Nicolas Denisot, poet, novelist and portrait-painter as well as intelligence-agent and diplomatist, was known by the anagram of his name and regularly addressed as Comte (Count) (Cf. Margaret Harris, A Study of Théodose Valentinian’s ‘Amant Resuscité’ (by Nicolas Denisot?), Geneva, 1966).

8. Suetonius’ cognomen was probably Tranquillus.

9. The ‘good chevalier Bayard’ (on whom Jacques de Mailles wrote a popular book) was indeed really called Pierre Du Terrail. Escalin, Baron de la Garde, was nicknamed Captain Poulin.

10. The Renaissance cult of Classical names adds force to Montaigne’s point. (When Erasmus first heard of Julius Caesar Scaliger he thought the name was fictional.)

11. Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 34.

12. Cicero, Tusc. disput., V, xvii, 49; translated from the Greek epitaph of Epaminondas. ’95: on our lips for so many centuries…

13. From Ennius’ epitaph on Scipio Africanus.

14. Juvenal, Satires, X, 137–41.