Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

In the trade journal The Bookseller, British Novelist Nicholas Monsarrat, who saw World War II from a Royal Navy bridge and told his story in The Cruel Sea (about 800,000 copies sold), trained his guns on Herman Wouk, U.S.N.R. and The Caine Mutiny (about 2,000,000 copies). Wouk's novel of life on a minesweeper, said Monsarrat, "is most readable, often engrossing, and as true an account . . . as a ten-year-old child's drawing of an aircraft carrier."

Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, who grinningly told reporters that some "goddam statesman" had stolen his hat during a White House conference, had to say that it was all a mistake. He had found his hat at home. However, news of the incident netted him seven new hats from sympathizers, and next time he was going to report that his shoes were missing. Said he: "I wear size 9-C."

Britain's former Prime Minister Clement Attlee, 70, who has been ailing all winter, checked into a London hospital for an appendectomy.

Russia's Andrei Gromyko, who recently has had the unusual experience of having to listen to some unvarnished New England backtalk, painted an extraordinary word picture of his tormentor. Chief U.S. Delegate to the U.N. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. Said Gromyko: "The U.S. representative has not been speaking, but swearing, using a jargon of the hillbilly shepherds in the mountains of Kentucky."

General James A. Van Fleet was getting the feel of civilian life again. After a visit to his orange grove in Auburndale, Fla., where he sampled this year's crop, he took his wife, daughter-in-law and little grandson, James Van Fleet III, on a visit near the town of Gruver in the Texas Panhandle. His host: former Sergeant Nick Holt, ,his driver and bodyguard in Korea. His entertainment: Texas-style coyote hunting by car and airplane.

Guri Lie, 27, daughter of the U.N.'s Trygve Lie, announced in Manhattan that she has registered as an immigrant under the Norwegian quota and will become a U.S. citizen.

In Washington, the Maine State Society ordered 500 choice Maine lobsters, gallons of clam chowder and other native delicacies for their annual dinner, invited House Speaker Joe Martin to come along and show how a man from Massachusetts tackles a well-turned lobster claw.

In Seoul, the Eighth Army's Lieut. General Maxwell D. Taylor presented Korea's President Syngman Rhee with a 78th-birthday gift: a brand new jeep with blue leather seats, deep blue hubcaps and two sirens. Extra accessory: a special R.O.K. commander-in-chief license plate --two gold dragons gazing into a hibiscus, Korea's national flower.

New York Daily News Gossip Columnist Ed Sullivan discovered that a pro-Communist weekly, National Guardian (circ. 47,000), had bought a block of 300 seats for the April 8 performance of Wonderful Town, starring Rosalind Russell. The magazine planned to resell the tickets in a fund-raising campaign. Wrote Sullivan: "I'm quite sure, Rosalind, that you'll step out of this . . . job for the Kremlin." Producer Robert Fryer canceled the April 8 performance, told ticket holders they would get their money back.

King Frederik of Denmark held a small royal traffic court of his own. His uncle, Prince Rene de Bourbon-Parma, 59, a Copenhagen meat exporter, recently rammed two cars in a hit & run accident after a drinking bout. Since the Prince is a member of the royal family and immune to prosecution in the courts, the King himself pronounced sentence: no driving for a year.

On opening night of the Ringling Brothers circus in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden this week, the beasts took second billing to beauty. Among the scheduled attractions: Marlene Dietrich, in a ringmaster's uniform that would have had Barnum himself barking with pride. The occasion: a three-ring benefit performance for cerebral-palsy victims.

Among the latest refugees from East Germany to arrive in West Berlin was Fraulein Gertrud Spengler, sister of the late, famed German philosopher Oswald (Decline of the West) Spengler.

With a personal staff of six chamberlains, Crown Prince Akihito, 19, sailed from Tokyo on the S.S. President Wilson for his first trip abroad, a six-month journey which will take in the coronation in London. Emperor Hirohito gave his son a bon voyage present of pearl cuff links; the Empress personally packed his wardrobe trunk. Both parents watched the Prince's departure on a palace TV set.

Crooner Frank Sinatra, dunned by the Bureau of Internal Revenue a fortnight ago for $109,997 in back federal income taxes, applied to the Nevada state tax commission for permission to buy a 2% interest in the gambling concession at the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas' newest casino. Reported price of the share: $50,000.

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