When penmanship was more of an art, people often added fancy swirls and curlicues to their signatures. Look at the impressive “John Hancock” on the Declaration of Independence as an example. This flourish, or paraph — borrowed from the French “paraph,” meaning “paragraph,” but based on the Latin “paraphus,” meaning “short horizontal stroke” — was an early antiforgery measure. The more ornate one’s paraph, the harder the full signature would be to copy. In modern usage, when a notary signs a document of obligation, such as a mortgage, the notary’s signature is called a paraph. In this context, the paraph is not just a decorative signature because it certifies the document as legitimate.