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

A quiet, businesslike politico who seldom invites comparison with his rambunctious predecessor James Michael Curley, Boston's Mayor John Hynes visited Italy last week on a good-will mission from his Italian-American constituents to the all-Italian citizens of Rome, and managed to kick up a fuss that out-curled Curley at his bushy-tailed best. Gallivanting about Rome with 60 other rubbernecking Bostonians, Democrat Hynes got himself photographed with a nestful of Neo-Fascists, was front-paged by happy Communists and indignant Conservative dailies alike. Some newspaper reports alleged that Hynes had visited the Neo-Fascist headquarters, had seen a film glorifying Mussolini's last stand, asked a cafe orchestra to play the forbidden Blackshirt hymn Giovinezza, topped off his day by observing July 4 with a 2 a.m. fireworks display on the Appian Way--creating such indignation that a city council meeting debating the reports broke up in acrimonious confusion. Heading back to the U.S. with a lightened cargo of good will, Hynes bleated his innocence (a spokesman's explanation: it was a visiting Boston councilman, not Hynes, who shined up to the Neo-Fascists). Said the mayor: "I wouldn't know a Neo-Fascist if I saw one."

In an unpretentious ceremony at 200-year-old Nassau Hall, Dr. Harold W. Dodds, 68, passed on the presidency of Princeton University to Dr. Robert F. Goheen, former assistant classics professor, who at 37 is the youngest chief executive to take office at the university since 1759. The new president's biggest problem, according to Dr. Dodds: renovating Princeton's antiquated physical plant. The retiring prexy's next assignment: determining, for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, what makes a good college president.

Under the warm sun of a republic that suffers kings no more, Prince Henri of France, 24, the eldest son of the Count of Paris, pretender to the nonexistent French throne, and the Duchess Maria-Theresa of Wuerttemberg, 22, were married before 150 other crowned and uncrowned heads of Europe's dwindling but still ornamental nobility. As the elegant 50-car procession wound through the streets of Dreux in one of the most dazzling displays of royal panoply since World War II, thousands of monarchists shouted "Vive le Roi!" Among those present: King Paul and Queen Frederika of Greece, Prince Jean of Luxembourg, Princess Beatrix of The Netherlands, ex-King Umberto of Italy and Europe's two other leading pretenders, Spain's Don Juan and Portugal's Dom Duarte Nuno. Notably missing: the Windsors of Great Britain.

Attending the opening of a scientific display in Amsterdam, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands stopped before a complicated calculating machine. The operator informed her that the gadget could follow instructions, but could not think. Thinking hard herself, Her Majesty was silent, then delivered the considered royal opinion: "Fortunate."

Proud as a country squire showing off the new manorhouse, former President Harry S. Truman guided an impressive flock of old friends and old antagonists through the U.S.'s newest national monument, the $21 million Harry S. Truman Library at Independence, Mo. On hand for the library's dedication: ex-President Herbert Hoover, Eleanor Roosevelt, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Senate Democratic Leader Lyndon Johnson, Senate Republican Leader William Knowland, and durable old Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, who passed the time of day with his old colleague, thrust out his snapping-turtle neck to plant a buss on the cheek of proud Bess Truman.

Short-fused Cinemogul Mike Todd, an openhanded sort who would pass out salted nuts at his own hanging if he owned the beer concession, last week tossed a champagne-budget party (estimates: $50,000 and up) near London for a few (estimates: 2,000 and up) of his friends. Mike's angle: none, except that, he conceded, a word or two about the London premiere of his zany travelogue Around the World in 80 Days might "sneak into the newspapers.'' At London's vast, varicolored Battersea Pleasure Gardens, Todd's flunkeys dealt out some 2,000 plastic raincoats he had bought ("The goddamn rain flowed like champagne," the great man growled), while Aly Khan and his great and good friend, French Model Bettina, cavorted on the carousel, U.S. Ambassador Jock Whitney sloshed into a mud puddle, and Sir Hartley Shawcross, onetime British attorney general, navigated a rumba. Mike missed no chance to brandish the pregnancy of his third wife, Cinemactress Elizabeth Taylor. Item: at the premiere, piqued when distinguished guests were tardy, Todd rushed his wife to a chair, crying for all to hear: "What would you do if your wife was pregnant?" Item: at the party, a drunken guest teetered against Liz. Todd seized the sot, pushed him to the edge of the lake. "My wife is pregnant," he choked. "Will you please be a gentleman?" Liz allowed she might have the baby on the spot, hoped it would be a girl, "because I don't know whether the world is ready yet for another Mike Todd."

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