T. Tembarom

The boys at the Brooklyn public school which he attended did not know what the “T. ” stood for. He would never tell them. All he said in reply to questions was: “It don't stand for nothin'. You've gotter have a' 'nitial, ain't you? ” His name was, in fact, an almost inevitable school-boy modification of one felt to be absurd and pretentious. His Christian name was Temple, which became “Temp. ” His surname was Barom, so he was at once “Temp Barom. ” In the natural tendency to avoid waste of time it was pronounced as one word, and the letter p being superfluous and cumbersome, it easily settled itself into “Tembarom, ” and there remained. By much less inevitable processes have surnames evolved themselves as centuries rolled by. Tembarom liked it, and soon almost forgot he had ever been called anything else.