What’s in a name?

With the coming merger of Northwest and Delta Airlines, it’s worth pausing for a moment and honoring the airlines that have given their lives to the Delta brand.

It started with Delta Air Corporation, which was a cropdusting service in Louisiana in the ’20s.

But the roots — and the routes — go to Boston.

Boston & Maine was part of the old B&M Railway Company, and it operated under contract to National Airways, founded by — among others — Amelia Earhart. National eventually became Northeast Airlines. The airline was famous for its yellow airplanes, called yellowbirds.

The airline merged with Delta in 1972, which is how Delta became such a big “player” in the northeast.

In the ’50s, Delta picked up Chicago & Southern Airlines, which had previously been known as Pacific Seaboard Air Lines.

In 1986, Delta picked up Western Airlines, another airline that started in the ’30s as a mail carrier.

Delta acquired the transatlantic routes of bankrupt PanAm, and then the lucrative Boston-New York shuttle from the same airline.

Northwest, similarly, started as a mail carrier in 1926.

In 1968, Pacific, Bonanza, West Coast were merged into Air West.

Just a few years later — 1971 — Howard Hughes bought the airline and renamed it Hughes Airwest.

With airline deregulation, Southern Airways and North Central Airlines merged into Republic Airlines in 1979 . A second “Herman the Duck” joined the logo and flew in the other direction.

Republic acquired Hughes Airwest in 1980. In 1986, Northwest acquired Republic.

And the rest is…