The name "Jazzer"--(was: jazzer, 1896)

[Douglas G. Wilson]

A   George Thompson's spotting of the 19th century name "Jazzer"
>raises the question" Where did this name come from?

>You folks may recall that I posted a few weeks ago a joke from an
>>1896 Massachusetts newspaper in the form of a dialog between
>>"Goslin" and "Jazzer".  Since then, it has occurred to me that in as
>>much as "Goslin" is an authentic name -- not common, but some may
>>remember "Goose" Goslin, who played baseball from 1921 to 1938 --
>>then perhaps "Jazzer" is also a name.

I reviewed some jokes taken from the "Roxbury Gazette". Character names
included:

Jazzer & Gozlin [sic] (1896) [George Thompson's joke]
Grazlin (1896)
Dashem & Kasham (1896)
Bablow & Gadwin (1899)
Dozber & Jazlin (1895)
Bloozin & Gablow (1898)
Tablow & Scadman (1898)

and even

Mrs. Xrays & Mrs. Raysex

etc., etc.

On another note, jokes in the "Brooklyn Daily Eagle" in the same period
included our old friend Jinks quite often, including "Jinks", "Jinx", "Jinx
and Wickwire", "Jinks and Binks", "Jinks and Blinks", "Jinks and Winks",
"Mr. and Mrs. Jinks", "Rev. Mr. Jinks", "Jinks and Filkins", "I. Jinks"
[i.e., "high jinks" probably], etc., etc. The names do not seem to be
correlated with material in the jokes; the names are essentially arbitrary
in most cases IMHO, perhaps chosen for peculiar sounds. "Jinks" looks to be
one of the most popular, and I take it to be an "everyman" name like
"Jones", perhaps with some humorous freight from "highjinks".

-- Doug Wilson