First typeface with a name?

John Hudson

Does anyone know what was the first typeface to be named, to be identified as something other than e.g. Aldus' second italic, or Caslon's English Body Pica Roman No.1?

It makes sense that the practice of naming typefaces — and trademarking those names — became standard among the large commercial foundries of the 19th Century, and later the makers and sellers of matrix fonts for hot metal machine composition. But when did it begin, and how quickly did it become common?

I imagine this is a topic that one or more type and printing historians may have investigated. Any references?

Alvaro Franca

Tobias Frere Jones wrote about when typefaces began being named sometime ago

John Hudson

Thanks! Now I read that, I'm pretty sure I read it when Tobias first published it, but had forgotten about it.

John Hudson

Having (re)read Tobias' article, I am now wondering what was the first non-decorative, typical text face to be named?

Florian Hardwig

In his Reading essay about the development of clarendon/ionic typefaces, Mitja Miklavčič mentions that “[i]n October of 1845 the name ‘Clarendon’ was registered” and quotes Yvonne Schwemer-Scheddin who claims that Fann Street Foundry’s “Clarendon was also the first typeface to enjoy copyright protection”.

Kent Lew

Clarendon is also what came to my mind immediately (without checking any sources to confirm).

John Hudson

Thanks, Florian and Kent.

Nick Shinn

Union Pearl, c.1690, according to the Stephenson Blake early 20th century revival.
Can’t find any contemporary samples, though.

Figgins’ Phantom, 1830s.

Florian Hardwig

Union Pearl is shown in Jaspert, Berry & Johnson, and described as follows:

The oldest of the English decorated types, which belonged about 1700 to the Grover Foundry and has descended to the present owners via Fry’s and the Fann Street Foundry. It is an italic with swash capitals and open letters which are decorated with pearls or unions.

Jongseong Park

This question intrigued me and I ended up doing a quick internet search on it for Korean typefaces, which represent a kind of a parallel history to the development of type in Europe.

In Korea the typefaces produced by the national type casting foundry during the Joseon period were referred to by the names of the year that they were produced in the sexagenary cycle. So the first one in 1403 was named Gyemija (also romanized as Kyemija; 계미자 in hangul, 癸未字 in Chinese characters) because 1403 was the gyemi (癸未; guiwei in Chinese) year. The most famous Joseon-era typeface, recast several times over the next couple of centuries, was first made in 1434, the gabin (甲寅; jiayin in Chinese) and thus was named Gabinja (also Kabinja; 갑인자, 甲寅字). The scholar Kim Jongjik (김종직 in hangul, 金宗直 in Chinese characters) explains these names in a piece written during the reign of King Seongjong (r. 1469–1495).

These are generic names, obviously, but Gabinja was also sometimes called Wibuinja (위부인자 in hangul, 衛夫人字 in Chinese characters) after Lady Wei (衛夫人), a famous Chinese calligrapher, supposedly because of similarities of the typeface to her style. Somewhat similarly, Iminja (임인자, 壬寅字) which was produced in 1782 is also called Hanguja (한구자, 韓構字) because it was based on the handwriting of Han Gu (or Han Ku; 한구, 韓構).

So what was the first Korean typeface that was given its own name not based on the year it was produced or the hand that it imitated? According to this book, the first non-generic name for an officially produced typeface was Saengsaengja (생생자, 生生字), a wood type from 1792 (which was named by King Jeongjo himself according to the book). It is named after a passage from the old Chinese classic, I Ching (易經), also known as the Book of Changes: 生生之謂易 (shengsheng zhiwei yi), or "production and reproduction is what is called (the process of) change" (Eileen Chang's translation). 生生, "production and reproduction", is simply the doubling of the Chinese character for "life" and is also translated as "life and growth" by other authors. I find it a quite fitting poetic name for a typeface.

Nick Shinn

Talbot Baines Reed, A History of the Old English Letter Foundries, 1888/1952.