Mononymous person break with his past. The new name combined several features. It was an anagram for a Latinized version of his family surname, "Arouet, l[e] j[eune]"; it reversed the syllables of the name of a family "château", Airvault; and it has implications of speed and daring through similarity to French expressions such as "voltige", "volte-face" and "volatile". "Arouet" would not have served the purpose, given that name's associations with "roué" and with an expression that meant "for thrashing". The 19th-century French author Marie-Henri Beyle used many pen names, most famously the mononym Stendhal, adapted from the name of the little Prussian
HMS Firebrand (1694) HMS Firebrand (1694) Firebrand was a Royal Navy fireship built at Limehouse in 1694, the first Royal Naval vessel to bear the name. "Firebrand" served in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. She is recorded as convoying five merchantmen in company with "Winchester" near Barbados in March 1695. "Firebrand" was lost during the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 when a navigational error sent Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell's fleet through dangerous reefs west of Cornwall while on their way from Gibraltar to Portsmouth. On the night of 22 October 1707, "Firebrand", commanded by Captain Francis Percy, smashed into the Outer Gilstone Rock off