What's In A Name?

Carl Shank • October 12, 2023

What's In A Name?  Do you remember memorizing your ABCs with the "Alphabet Song" —  "ABCDEFG / HIJKLMNOP / QRSTUV / WXYZ / Now I said my ABCs / What do you think of me?/" Our entire life has been framed by the alphabet. For those of us in the typography or typesetting business, the alphabet is our bread-and-butter. Those of us who design fonts and tweak layouts and redesign business logos are, may I say, in love with the alphabet and all that it conveys. But even if you are only slightly interested in history and the alphabet, have you ever wondered where your name came from? Not your surname, which you can find on sites such as ancestry.com, but your NAME, that which people casually call you. My name is "Carl," and I have wondered where those letters came from in the history of letter forms and cultural associations.

Alphabet History  The Alphabet is old. Very old. John Coleman Darnell, an Egyptologist from Yale University, in the 1990s made a discovery that rocked the alphabetic world. Looking for Egyptian relics, he discovered two ancient inscriptions at Wadi El-hol in central Egypt, about 30 miles northwest of ancient Thebes. This ancient road had evidence of inscriptions on the walls of the cliffs lining the roadway. The writings show the alphabet's invention from around 2000 B.C. A fascinating study of his report is found in David Sacks, Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z.


The Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphics (called "sacred carvings"), using pictograms for letters. Pictures of familiar objects were used to convey sounds and words. The ancient Semites borrowed from these pictograms, so that, for example, the picture of a "head" was called resh, and since the word began with the sound of an "r," they selected that image for the sound. Thus, "R" is the sketch of a head.


From these backgrounds, the Phoenicians, descendants of people who lived in ancient Canaan, began writing their language in a 22-letter alphabet, sometime before 1000 B.C. They had inherited these letters from other tribes before them, but had the skill and knowledge to formally write them down. By 900 B.C. the Jews and other Near Eastern peoples copied the letters for their own use. The Greeks then followed about 800 B.C., adapting the letters for their own use. The chart on the right shows the Phoenician alphabet and how it relates to our modern alphabet.

Beyond the Phoenicians — The Phoenician alphabet begat the Greek which begat the Etruscan, a people who lived in northern Italy. From there, the Roman alphabet and writing were developed. The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters, while the Greek alphabet had 26. Interestingly, the Hebrews, another Semitic tribe which populated the Canaanite region under the influence of Joshua's campaign (in the Bible), only khet (j), qof (q), resh (r) and shin (v) resemble their Phoenician counterparts. The Hebrew writing from right-to-left derives from the Phoenicians.


Modern letter forms have their immediate heritage in Roman inscriptions from around 50–120 A.D. The digital version called Trajan, created by Carol Twombly in 1989 for Adobe, reveals some of these Latin forms. In the sixth through tenth centuries, lower case letters (called minuscules) were formed, with modern lettering evolving from the Carolingian scripts. The Emperor Charlemagne used these letters as an educational standard. The Charlemagne font, created by Carol Twombly again, can be seen in the Latin lettering in the sample above. Italics then came into being in the form of cursive script developed in Rome and Florence.


Researching My Name — So, with all this information, and more, I investigated the letterforms that make up my name, CARL. The examples below show that tracing. If you would like more information on tracing your own name, buy a copy of  David Sacks, Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet from A to Z, available at Amazon.com.

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Dutch Typography: Historical Beginnings

By Carl Shank • August 28, 2026
Dutch Typography: Historical Beginnings Dutch typography has had an influence far beyond the relatively small geographic size of the Netherlands. From the early printing centers of the Low Countries to the international reputation of Dutch type designers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Dutch typography is characterized by craftsmanship, readability, experimentation, and a strong relationship between type and graphic design. The larger historical pattern Early Printing in the Low Countries (c. 1470–1500) . The Netherlands and Belgium were important centers of European printing almost immediately after Gutenberg. Major early centers included Utrecht, Haarlem, Leuven, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam. Dutch and Flemish printers initially used forms derived from Gothic textura, but Roman types increasingly appeared in humanist books. A particularly important early figure was Gerard Leeu, who printed in Gouda and later Antwerp. His books demonstrate the transition from manuscript traditions toward increasingly sophisticated typographic production. Gerard or Gheraert Leeu, Leew, (between 1445 and 1450 to1492) printed what is called “incunable.” An incunable or incunabulum (pl.: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book or pamphlet printed in the earliest stages of European printing up to about 1500. They are distinct from manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. Some authorities on the history of printing include block books from the same time period as incunabula, whereas others limit the term to works printed using movable type. Famous incunabula include two from Mainz, the Gutenberg Bible of 1455 and the Peregrinatio in terram sanctam of 1486, printed and illustrated by Erhard Reuwich, the Nuremberg Chronicle written by Hartmann Schedel and printed by Anton Koberger in 1493, and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphiliprinted by Aldus Manutius with important illustrations by an unknown artist. Leeu printed his first (liturgical) book in May 1477 in his shop in Gouda, where between 1477 and 1484 he produced a total of about 69 books. Besides printing works in Latin and Dutch, he reprinted some of William Caxton’s editions for the English market. ( REFERENCE ) The Low Countries also developed a strong tradition of illustrated books, woodcut initials, borders, and ornamental typography.

French Typography History (Part 2)

By Carl Shank • August 24, 2026
Art Nouveau and Paris Between 1500 and 1900 typography evolved from Renaissance humanist forms to industrial mass production and artistic revival. Old style typefaces (like Garamond) moved to Transitional faces (like Baskerville) to Modern/Didone faces (like Didot and Bodoni) to Industrial display types (fat faces, slab serifs, sans serifs) to the Arts & Crafts revivals. Art Nouveau was a reaction against the academicism, eclecticism and historicism of nineteenth century architecture and decorative art. The new art movement had its roots in Britain, in the floral designs of William Morris, and in the Arts and Crafts movement founded by the pupils of Morris. Art Nouveau fonts ( REFERENCE ) grew out of the late nineteenth century Art Nouveau movement (c. 1890–1910). The style flourished across Europe and America in architecture, furniture, illustration, and typography. In lettering, Art Nouveau embraced organic forms, flowing curves, floral motifs, and asymmetry, reflecting the movement’s fascination with natural growth and hand-drawn ornament. Art Nouveau took its name from the Maison de l'Art Nouveau, a Parisian gallery that exhibited the works of artists and designers who were associated with the movement. The style was characterized by flowing, curvilinear forms inspired by natural shapes and motifs such as flowers, vines, and insects. It also incorporated elements from other artistic traditions, such as Japanese art and the Arts and Crafts movement. The work of Alphonse Mucha and the type of Eugene Smauel Grasset (1845–1917) are particularly important to understanding this period. (ILLS) Grasset taught design at the École Guérin from 1890 to 1903, at the École d’Art graphique in the rue Madame from 1903 to 1904, at theAcadémie de la Grande Chaumiere from 1904 to 1913, and at the École Estienne in Paris. Grasset had freely adapted the alphabet of Nicolas Jenson (1471) with the intention of using it to print a book on his own method for ornamental composition, inspired by the courses he gave to the Guérin school. (Wikipedia) The Grasset Typeface (ILLS) from Lewis F. Day's Alphabets Old and New , London, 1910, shows that art nouveau flair for which these men were famous. The font has been digitized by CARE Typography and is offered with a number of other historic fonts for a modest fee. Contact cshanktype@gmail.com for details. Auriol (1901, George Auriol, France). Produced by G. Peignot et Fils foundry, was one of the most widely used Art Nouveau fonts in Paris. It was inspired by Japanese calligraphy. Japanese calligraphy, called Shodo or Shuji, heavily influenced Art Nouveau type. Art Nouveau was particularly popular in Europe, where it influenced a wide range of artistic disciplines, including architecture, interior design, furniture, jewelry, and graphic design. Some of the most notable Art Nouveau architects included Hector Guimard, Antoni Gaudí, and Victor Horta, while artists such as Alphonse Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, and Gustav Klimt were celebrated for their decorative and ornamental works. By 1910, Art Nouveau was fading. It was seen as overly decorative and was replaced by Art Deco, Plakatstil (poster style), and modernist sans-serifs (e.g., Futura, 1927). Still, Art Nouveau typefaces remained popular in advertising for certain luxury goods. In the 1960s–70s counterculture revival, fonts like Arnold Böcklin were rediscovered and associated with psychedelic posters, bringing Art Nouveau back into fashion. In short, Art Nouveau fonts were display-oriented, highly decorative, and tied to the broader artistic revolt against rigid academic styles. Fonts like Eckmann, Auriol, Bradley, and Arnold Böcklin remain the most recognizable products of the period.
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