THE CAT'S PAJAMAS LIV

Tad Tuleja

A collection of the (mostly) true origins of familiar phrases

(YOUR) NAME IS MUD

This expression, meaning your family name has been insulted or disrespected in some way and your reputation is now sullied,  arose during the Italian Renaissance, when family rivalries were at a fever pitch. Coats of arms - those symbolic "names" - were prominently displayed at the entrances  to aristocratic families' homes. Any tampering with these shields, even passing too closely in front of them, was grounds for offense. The most popular, and unmistakable, of these offenses was to besmirch the coat of arms with mud. If the family whose coat of arms had been splattered failed to retaliate promptly enough, it was said it had acquired a "muddy name."

Despite its history, virtually all etymologists today acknowledge that the expression, Your name is mud, refers to Dr. Samuel Mudd - the physician who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg while he was on the run after assassinating Abraham Lincoln. Whether Mudd was in on the plot or doing his duty as a doctor is disputed, but he was convicted as a co-conspirator and sentenced to life in prison. In a bizarre language coincidence, Dr. Mudd fulfilled the origin of this expression 400 years later.