handle to one's name

1. A nickname or title, as in He was knighted and now had a handle to his name, or His gluttony earned him a handle to his name, Big Mouth. [First half of 1800s]

Example Sentences

A handle to one's name, an estate, all the little earmarks of "nobility" are not only required but insisted on.

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And yet even here there were some, no better indeed than he, who grasped the meager prizes that even the sea itself could not withhold; prizes that he could never hope to touch—the command of ships, the right to tread the quarter-deck, the handle to one's name.

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All that has been accomplished is the displacement of the objective point; the desire, the mania for a handle to one’s name is as prevalent as ever. 

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There was nothing left for Dolores to do but to sit by in the window-seat, philosophizing on the remarkable effects of a handle to one's name, and feeling cruelly neglected.

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The real flattering thing would be to be made as much of as Philip is, for one's own merits, and not for the handle to one's name.'

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