Calling People Names

Abstract

A continuity of naming is often the simplest continuity of all, and provides a thread through history along which other continuities — of race, language or culture — can be traced and imagined.¹ Those in the modern world who use the term ‘Celt’ to describe both ancient and modern inhabitants of Europe often allow this usage to imply continuity between the two very different ages — between pre-classical barbarian Europe, and the modern world of the Celtic fringe. The continuity, however, is retrospectively imposed. It is not a continuity which was lived by those people who are united, over the ages, under the title ‘Celts’.