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

[George Thompson]

I had been supposing that it was necessary to show that "Jazzer" was a real name, however uncommon.  However, Douglas Wilson shows that it in the 1890s the interlocutors in "He and She" jokes might be given absurd, unheard-of names.  So the etymology or the name as well as the question of whether a person of that name might have come to the knowledge of the person who composed the joke seem beside the point.  In any event, we still don't have to concoct a speculative history of the word "jazz" that would account for it being known in central Massachusetts in 1896.

Nonetheless, there were a few people somewhere in the U. S. in the late 19th C named "Jazzer" or "Jasser".  I also notice that the 1951 edition of Albert Dauzat's dictionary of French names has "Jasse" "nom toponymique . . . designant un gite, un lieu de repos our le betail. . . and "Jasseur" & "Jassier", among others, as diminutives.  It's not in several other more recent dictionaries of French names, nor in the only dictionary of German names we have here at Bobst.  (Titles upon request.)

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
Date: Saturday, October 11, 2003 2:03 pm
Subject: Re: The name "Jazzer"--(was: jazzer, 1896)

> 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
> namesincluded:
>
> 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
> periodincluded 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
> arbitraryin 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
>