CHAPTER I.

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ENGLISH SURNAMES.

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LONDON: PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

AND PARLIAMENT STREET

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ENGLISH SURNAMES:

THEIR

_SOURCES AND SIGNIFICATIONS_.

BY

CHARLES WAREING BARDSLEY, M.A.

[Illustration]

_SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED_

London:

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

1875.

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TO

MY FATHER.

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PREFACE

TO

THE SECOND EDITION.

I accept the early demand for a new edition of my book, not so much as

proof of the value of my individual work, as of the increased interest

which is being taken in this too much neglected subject. In deference to

the wholesome advice of many reviewers, both in the London and

Provincial press, especially that of the ‘Times’ and the ‘Athenæum,’ I

have re-arranged the whole of the chapters on ‘Patronymics’ and

‘Nicknames,’ subdividing the same under convenient heads. By so doing

the names which bear any particular relationship to one another will be

found more closely allied than they were under their former more general

treatment.

My book has met with much criticism, partly favourable, partly adverse,

from different quarters. To my reviewers in general I offer my best

thanks for their comments. The ‘Saturday Review’—and I say it the more

readily as they will see that I have not been insensible to the value of

their criticism—has not, I think, sufficiently understood the nature of

my work. I am well aware that praise is due to them for having for some

length of time strenuously advocated the claim of our language to be

English through all its varying stages. I do not see that in the general

character of my book I have lost sight of this fact. An ‘English

Directory’ is not an ‘English Dictionary.’ The influences that have been

at work on our language are not the same as those upon our nomenclature.

Every social casualty had an effect upon our names which it could not

have upon our words. The names found in Domesday Book, casting aside the

new importation, were, in the great majority of cases, obsolete by the

end of the twelfth century, and of those which have survived and

descended to us as surnames, well-nigh all are devoid of diminutive or

patronymic desinences—a clear proof that they were utterly out of

fashion as personal names during the era of surname formation. The

Norman invasion was not a conquest of our language, but it was of our

nomenclature. The ‘Saturday Review’ may still demand that we shall view

all as English, and obliterate the distinctive terms of Saxon and

Norman, but in doing so let us not forget facts. The language which

preceded the Norman Conquest is still the _vehicle_ of ordinary

converse. The nomenclature of that period went down like Pharaoh’s

chariot, and like Pharaoh’s chariot, which for all I know lies where it

did, was never recovered.

A review in the ‘Guardian’ demands a brief notice on account of the

mischief it may do. The end kept in view by the reviewer is as

transparent as his inability to reach it. Surely the day is past for any

further attempt to make out that we have no _metronymic_ surnames. The

writer is evidently unaware of the fact that the use of ‘ie’ and ‘y,’ as

in ‘Teddy’ or ‘Johnnie,’ in the nineteenth century, does not prevail to

as great an extent as that of ‘ot’ and ‘et’ from the twelfth to the

fifteenth. As ‘Philip’ became ‘Philipot,’ now ‘Philpott’; as ‘William,’

‘Williamot,’ now ‘Wilmott’; as ‘Hew’ (or Hugh), ‘Hewet’ and ‘Hewetson’;

as ‘Ellis’ (or Elias), ‘Elliot’ and ‘Elliotson’; so ‘Till’ (Matilda)

became ‘Tillot’ and ‘Tillotson’; ‘Emme’ (Emma), ‘Emmott,’ ‘Emmett,’ and

‘Emmotson’; ‘Ibbe’ (Isabella), ‘Ibbott,’ ‘Ibbett,’ and ‘Ibbotson’;

‘Mary,’ ‘Mariot’ and ‘Marriott’; and ‘Siss’ (Cecilia), ‘Sissot’ and

‘Sissotson.’ ‘Emmot,’ the writer says, is a form of ‘Amyas,’ I suppose

because he saw ‘Amyot’ in Miss Yonge’s glossary. According to him,

therefore, Emmot is a masculine name. How comes it to pass, then, that

Emmot is _always_ Latinised as Emmota, or that in our old marriage

licences ‘Richard de Akerode’ gets a dispensation to marry ‘Emmotte de

Greenwood’ (Test. Ebor. iii. 317), or ‘Roger Prestwick’ to marry ‘Emmote

Crossley’ (ditto, 338)? How is it we meet with such entries as

‘Cissot_a_ West,’ (Index) or ‘Syssot that was _wife_ of Patrick’ (69)?

How is it again that Mariot is registered as ‘Mariot_a_ in le Lane,’ or

‘John fil. Mariot_æ_,’ and Ibbot or Ibbet as ‘Ibbot_a_ fil. Adæ,’ or

‘Robert fil. Ibot_æ_,’ (Index)? The fact is, we have a large class of

metronymics many of which doubtless arose from posthumous birth, or from

adoption, or the more important character of the mother in the eyes of

the neighbours than the father, others too from illegitimacy.

Amongst other errors for which I have been called to account, the oddest

is that of attributing to Miss Muloch the authorship of Miss Yonge’s

most useful and laborious work on Christian names. I do not know to

which lady I owe the deepest apology—whether to Miss Yonge for robbing

her literary crown of one of its brightest jewels, or to Miss Muloch for

appearing to insinuate that hers was incomplete. This and several other

mistakes of less moment I have rectified in the present edition.

I have to thank the authoress of ‘Mistress Margery,’ etc., for the names

in the index marked QQ., RR. 1, RR. 2, and RR. 3. Such entries from the

registry of St. James’s, Piccadilly (QQ.), as ‘Repentance Tompson’

(1688), ‘Loving Bell’ (1693), ‘Nazareth Rudde’ (1695), ‘Obedience Clerk’

(1697), or ‘Unity Thornton’ (1703), may be set beside the instances

recorded on pp. 102–104. To these I would take this opportunity of

adding ‘Comfort Starre,’ ‘Hopestill Foster,’ ‘Love Brewster,’ ‘Fear

Brewster,’ ‘Patience Brewster,’ ‘Remembrance Tibbott,’ ‘Remember

Allerton,’ ‘Desire Minter,’ ‘Original Lewis,’ and ‘Thankes Sheppard,’

all being names of emigrants from England in the 17th century. (_Vide_

Hotten’s ‘Original Lists of Persons of Quality.’)

_February 1875._

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PREFACE

TO

THE FIRST EDITION.

As prefaces are very little read, I will make this as brief as possible.

It is strange how little has been written upon the sources and

significations of our English surnames. Of books of Peerage, of

Baronetage, and of Landed Gentry, thanks to Sir Bernard Burke, Mr.

Walford, and others, we are not without a sufficiency; but of books

purporting to treat of the ordinary surnames that greet our eye as we

scan our shop-fronts, or look down a list of contributions, or glance

over the ‘hatches, matches, and despatches’ of our newspapers—of these

there are but few. Indeed, putting aside Mr. Lower’s able and laborious

researches, we may say none. Tracts, pamphlets, short treatises,

articles in magazines, have at various times appeared, but they have

been necessarily confined and limited in their treatment of the

subject.[1] And yet what can be more natural than that we should desire

to know something relating to the origin of our surname, when it arose,

who first got it, and how? Of the feebleness of my own attempt to solve

all this I am conscious that I need not to be reminded. Still, I think

the ordinary reader will find in a perusal of this book some slight

increase of information, and if not this, that he has whiled away, not

unpleasantly, some of his less busy hours.

During the last seven years I have devoted the whole of my spare time to

the preparation of a ‘Dictionary of English Surnames.’ But about two

years ago it struck me that perhaps a smaller work dealing with the

subject in a less formal and more familiar style might not be

unacceptable to many, as a kind of rudimentary treatise. In the course

of my labours I have come under obligations to several writers and

several Societies. To long-departed men, whose works do follow after

them, I must give a passing allusion. Camden was the first to draw

attention to this subject, and though he wrote little, and that little

not of the most correct kind, still he has afforded the groundwork for

all future students. Verstegan, who came next with his ‘Restitution of

Decayed Intelligence,’ wrote quaintly, amusingly and incorrectly; and,

with respect to surnames, his definitions rather teach what they do not

than what they do mean. Passing over several archæological papers, and

with a wide gap in regard to time, we come to Mr. Lower’s studies. He

was the first to give a real compendium of English nomenclature. Of his

earlier efforts I will say nothing, for the ‘Patronymica Britannica’ is

that upon which his fame must rest. The fault of that work is that the

author has confined his researches all but entirely to the Hundred

Rolls. These Rolls are undoubtedly the best for such reference; but

there are many others, as my index will show, which not merely contain a

large mass of examples not to be met with there, but which, by varieties

of spelling in the case of such names as they share in common with the

other, afford comparisons the use of which would have made him certain

where he has only guessed, and would have enabled him also to avoid many

false conclusions. This I would say with all respect, as one who has

benefited very considerably by Mr. Lower’s labours. Others I must thank

more briefly, though none the less heartily. To Mr. Halliwell I am under

deep obligation, for to his ‘Dictionary of Archaisms’ I have gone freely

by way of quotation. To Mr. Way’s notes to his valuable edition of the

‘Promptorium Parvulorum’ I am also indebted for much interesting

information regarding mediæval life and its surroundings. Miss Yonge’s

‘History of Christian Names’ contains a large store of help to students

of this kind of lore, and of this I have availed myself in several

instances. In conclusion, I have to acknowledge much valuable aid

received from the publications of the Surtees Society, the Early English

Text Society, the Camden Society, and the Chetham Society. It is in the

rooms belonging to the latter that I have had the opportunity of

consulting most of the records and archives, a list of which prefaces my

index, as well as other books of a more incidentally helpful character,

and I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without tendering my hearty

thanks to Thomas Jones, Esq., B.A., F.S.A., for his courtesy in

permitting me access to all parts of the library, and to Mr. Richard

Hanby, the under-librarian, for his constant attention and readiness to

supply me with whatever books I required.

MANCHESTER:

_December 1873_.

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PREFACE

TO THE

INDEX OF INSTANCES.

There are several matters which I deem it advisable to mention to the

reader before he turns his attention to the Index of Instances (pp.

514–612).

I. I have not, in the various chapters that form the body of this book,

in all cases drawn particular attention when any name happens to belong

to several distinct classes. In the Index, however, I have tried to

remedy this by furnishing instances under the several heads to which

they have been assigned in the text.

II. While ordinarily adhering to my plan of giving but two examples, I

have set down three in some instances that seemed more interesting, and

in exceptional cases even four. To the majority of the appended surnames

more illustrations of course could have been added had it been expedient

or necessary. There are several names, however, which, though evidently

of familiar occurrence in early days, as they are now, are yet, so far

as my own researches go, without any record. For instance, I cannot find

any Arkwright or Runchiman previous to the sixteenth century. The origin

is perfectly clear, but the registry is wanting. Of several others,

again, I can light upon but one entry. Still, in a matter like this one

must be thankful for small mercies, and it was with no small amount of

rejoicing that in such a simple record as that of ‘John Sykelsmith’ I

found the progenitor, or one of the progenitors, of our many

‘Sucksmiths,’ ‘Sixsmiths,’ ‘Shuxsmiths,’ etc.

III. There has been a difficulty with regard to Christian names also,

which I have not attempted to overcome because it was impossible to do

so. With the Normans every baptismal name, masculine or feminine as it

might originally be, was the common property of the sexes. Thus by

simply appending the feminine desinence, ‘Druett’ became ‘Druetta’ (_v._

Drewett), ‘Williamet’ became ‘Williametta’ (_v._ Williamot), ‘Aylbred’

became ‘Aylbreda’ (_v._ Allbright), ‘Raulin’ became ‘Raulina’ (_v._

Rawlings), and ‘Goscelin’ became ‘Goscelina’ (_v._ Gosling). Any of

these surnames, Drewett, Willmott, Allbright, Rawlings, or Gosling,

therefore, may be of feminine origin—nay, if the reader has studied my

chapter on ‘Patronymic Surnames’ with any care, he will see that this is

fully as probable as the opposite view. Leaving thus undecided what

cannot be solved, I have placed both masculine and feminine forms under

the one surname to which one or other has given rise.

IV. There has been another difficulty also in respect of Christian

names. These, as has been shown in the chapter thereupon, were turned

into pet forms, and these shortened forms commonly came to be the

foundation of the surname. In all the more formal registers, however,

these surnames were never so set down. ‘Hugh Thomasson,’ ‘William

Thompson,’ and ‘Henry Tomson’ might come to have their names enrolled,

and up to the beginning of the sixteenth century at least they would be

set down alike as ‘Hugh fil. Thomas,’ ‘William fil. Thomas,’ and ‘Henry

fil. Thomas.’ Thus, again, ‘Ralph Higginson’ or ‘John Higgins’ would be

‘Radulphus’ or ‘Johannes fil. Isaac.’ This has prevented me from giving

so many instances of these curter forms of the patronymic class as I

should have liked. When they are given, the reader will observe that

they come from less punctilious and more irregular sources, such as for

instance the Surtees’ Society’s collection of Mediæval Yorkshire Wills

and Inventories. Where I have given such an instance as ‘Elekyn’ (_v._

Elkins) by itself, it must be understood that this is the Christian

name, and that the owner when his or her name was registered did not

boast a surname at all.

V. By way of interesting the reader I have occasionally given the Latin

form of entry. Thus ‘Adam the Goldsmith’ is set down as ‘Adam Aurifaber’

(_v._ Aurifaber), ‘Henry the Butcher’ as ‘Henry Carnifex’ (_v._

Carnifex), and ‘Hugh the Tailor’ as ‘Hugh Cissor’ (_v._ Cissor). Latin,

indeed, seems to have been the vehicle of ordinary indenture. Thus under

‘Littlejohn’ the reader will find extracted from the Hundred Rolls

‘Ricardus fil. Parvi-Johannis,’ and under ‘Linota,’ ‘Linota Vidua,’

_i.e._ ‘Linota the Widow.’ In the recording of local names,

Norman-French and Saxon seem to have fought for the first place, and

even in our most formal registers they had the precedence over Latin.

Thus if the latter can boast the entry of ‘Isolda Beauchamp’ as ‘Isolda

de Bello Campo’ (_v._ Beauchamp), still, if we come to such generic

names as Briggs or Brook, we find the entry is all but invariably either

‘Henry Atte-brigg’ or ‘Roger del Brigge’ (_v._ Briggs), or ‘Alice de la

Broke or ‘Ada ate Brok’ (_v._ Brook). As respects nicknames or names of

occupation, the Norman-French tongue had them to itself. ‘Roger le

Buck,’ ‘Philip le Criour,’ ‘Thomas le Cuchold,’ ‘Osbert le Curteys,’ or

‘Thomas le Cupper’—such is their continuous form of entry. Such a Saxon

enrolment as ‘Robert the Brochere’ (_v._ Broker) is of the rarest

occurrence—so rare, indeed, as to make one feel it was an undoubted

freak on the part of the registrar, whoever he might be.

VI. In some few cases I have set down surnames which are not treated of

in the text. I have done this either because the name seemed worthy of

this casual notice, or because, though not itself mentioned, it happened

to corroborate some statement I have made regarding a particular name

belonging to the same class.

In conclusion, I will not say there is no mistake in the Index—that

would be a bold thing to state; I will not say that I may not have given

an instance that does not rightly belong to the surname under which it

is set; but I can asseverate that I have honestly attempted to be

correct, and I believe a careful examination will find but the most

occasional error, if any at all, of this class.

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CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION vii

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xiii

PREFACE TO THE INDEX OF INSTANCES xvii

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER I.

PATRONYMIC SURNAMES 9

CHAPTER II.

LOCAL SURNAMES 107

CHAPTER III.

SURNAMES OF OFFICE 172

CHAPTER IV.

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (COUNTRY) 243

CHAPTER V.

SURNAMES OF OCCUPATION (TOWN) 317

APPENDIX TO CHAPTERS IV. AND V. 415

CHAPTER VI.

NICKNAMES 423

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INDEX OF INSTANCES 515

FOOTNOTES 711

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ENGLISH SURNAMES.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

To review the sources of a people’s nomenclature is to review that

people’s history. When we remember that there is nothing without a name,

and that every name that is named, whether it be of a man, or man’s

work, or man’s heritage of earth, came not by chance, or accident so

called, but was given out of some nation’s spoken language to denote

some characteristic that language expressed, we can readily imagine how

important is the drift of each—what a record must each contain. We

cannot but see that could we only grasp their true meaning, could we but

take away the doubtful crust in which they are oftentimes imbedded, then

should we be speaking out of the very mouth of history itself. For names

are enduring—generations come and go; and passing on with each, they

become all but everlasting. Nomenclature, in fact, is a well in which,

as the fresh water is flowing perennially through, there is left a

sediment that clings to the bottom. This silty deposit may

accumulate—nay, it may threaten to choke it up, still the well is there.

It but requires to be exhumed, and we shall behold it in all its simple

proportions once more. And thus it is with names. They betoken life and

matter that is ever coming and going, ever undergoing change and decay.

But through it all they abide. The accretions of passing years may

fasten upon them—the varied accidents of lapsing time may attach to

them—they may become all but undistinguishable, but only let us get rid

of that which cleaves to them, and we lay bare in all its naked

simplicity the character and the lineaments of a long gone era. Look for

instance at our place-names. Apart from their various corruptions they

are as they were first entitled. So far as the nomenclature of our

country itself is concerned, England is at this present day as rude, as

untutored, and as heathen as at the moment those Norwegian and Germanic

hordes grounded their keels upon our shores, for all our place-names,

saving where the Celt still lingers, are their bequest, and bear upon

them the impress of their life and its surroundings. These are they

which tell us such strange truths—how far they had made progress as yet

in the arts of life, what were the habits they practised, what was the

religion they believed in. And as with place-names, so with our own. As

records of past history they are equally truthful, equally suggestive.

One important difference, however, there is—Place-names, as I have just

hinted, once given are all but imperishable. Mountains, valleys, and

streams still, as a rule, retain the names first given them. Personal

names, those simple individual names which we find in use throughout all

pre-Norman history, were but for the life of him to whom they were

attached. They died with him, nor passed on saving accidentally. Nor

were those second designations, those which we call surnames as being

‘superadded to Christian names,’ at first of any lasting character. It

was not till the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, or even fourteenth

centuries that they became hereditary—that is, in any true sense

stationary.

Before, however, we enter into the history of these, and with regard to

England that is the purpose of this book, it will be well to take a

brief survey of the actual state of human nomenclature in preceding

times. Surnames, we must remember, were the simple result of necessity

when population, hitherto isolated and small, became so increased as to

necessitate further particularity than the merely personal one could

supply. One name, therefore, was all that was needed in early times, and

one name, as a general rule, is all that we find. The Bible is, of

course, our first record of these—‘Adam,’ ‘Eve,’ ‘Joseph,’ ‘Barak,’

‘David,’ ‘Isaiah,’ all were simple, single, and expressive titles, given

in most cases from some circumstances attending their creation or birth.

When the Israelites were crowded together in the wilderness they were at

once involved in difficulties of identification. We cannot imagine to

ourselves how such a population as that of Manchester or Birmingham

could possibly get on with but single appellations. Of course I do not

put this by way of real comparison, for with the Jewish clan or family

system this difficulty must have been materially overcome. Still it is

no wonder that in the later books of Moses we should find them falling

back upon this patronymic as a means of identifying the individual. Thus

such expressions as ‘Joshua the son of Nun,’ or ‘Caleb the son of

Jephunah,’ or ‘Jair the son of Manasseh,’ are not unfrequently to be met

with. Later on, this necessity was caused by a further circumstance.

Certain of these single names became popular over others. ‘John,’

‘Simon,’ and ‘Judas’ were such. A further distinction, therefore, was

necessary. This gave rise to sobriquets of a more diverse character. We

find the _patronymic_ still in use, as in ‘Simon Barjonas,’ that is,

‘Simon the son of Jonas;’ but in addition to this, we have also the

_local_ element introduced, as in ‘Simon of Cyrene,’ and the

_descriptive_ in ‘Simon the Zealot.’ Thus, again, we have ‘Judas

Iscariot,’ whatever that may mean, for commentators are divided upon the

subject; ‘Judas Barsabas,’ and ‘Judas of Galilee.’ In the meantime the

heathen but polished nations of Greece and Rome had been adopting

similar means, though the latter was decidedly the first in method.

Among the former, such double names as ‘Dionysius the Tyrant,’ ‘Diogenes

the Cynic,’ ‘Socrates the son of Sophronicus,’ or ‘Hecatæus of Miletus,’

show the same custom, and the same need. To the Roman, however, belongs,

as I have said, the earliest system of nomenclature, a system, perhaps,

more careful and precise than any which has followed after. The purely

Roman citizen had a threefold name. The first denoted the ‘_prænomen_,’

and answered to our personal, or baptismal, name. The second was what we

may term the _clan-name_; and the third, the cognomen, corresponded with

our present _surname_. Thus we have such treble appellations as ‘Marcus

Tullius Cicero,’ or ‘Aulus Licinius Archeas.’ If a manumitted slave had

the citizenship conferred upon him, his single name became his cognomen,

and the others preceded it, one generally being the name of him who was

the emancipator. Thus was it of ‘Licinius’ in the last-mentioned

instance. With the overthrow of the Western Empire, however, this system

was lost, and the barbarians who settled upon its ruins brought back the

simple appellative once more. Arminius, their chief hero, was content

with that simple title. Alaric, the brave King of the Goths, is only so

known. Caractacus and Vortigern, to come nearer home, represented but

the same custom.

But we are not without traces of those descriptive epithets which had

obtained among the earlier communities of the East. The Venerable Bede,

speaking of two missionaries, both of whom bore the name of ‘Hewald,’

says, ‘pro diversâ capellorum specie unus Niger Hewald, alter Albus

diceretur;’ that is, in modern parlance, the colour of their hair being

different, they came to be called ‘Hewald Black,’ and ‘Hewald White.’

Another Saxon, distinguished for his somewhat huge proportions, and

bearing the name of ‘Ethelred,’ was known as ‘Mucel,’ or ‘Great,’ a word

still lingering in the Scottish _mickle_. We may class him, therefore,

with our ‘le Grands,’ as we find them inscribed in the Norman rolls, the

progenitors of our ‘Grants,’ and ‘Grands,’ or our ‘Biggs,’ as Saxon as

himself. Thus again, our later ‘Fairfaxes,’ ‘Lightfoots,’ ‘Heavisides,’

and ‘Slows,’ are but _hereditary_ nicknames like to the earlier

‘Harfagres,’ ‘Harefoots,’ ‘Ironsides,’ and ‘Unreadys,’ which died out,

so far as their immediate possessors went, with the ‘Harolds,’ and

‘Edmunds,’ and ‘Ethelreds,’ upon whom they were severally foisted. They

were but expressions of popular feeling to individual persons by means

of which that individuality was increased, and, as with every other

instance I have mentioned hitherto, passed away with the lives of their

owners. No descendant succeeded to the title. The son, in due course of

time, got a sobriquet of his own, by which he was familiarly known, but

that, too, was but personal and temporary. It was no more hereditary

than had been his father’s before him, and even so far as himself was

concerned might be again changed according to the humour or caprice of

his neighbours and acquaintances. And this went on for several more

centuries, only as population increased these sobriquets became but more

and more common.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, a change took place. By

a silent and unpremeditated movement over the whole of the more

populated and civilized European societies, nomenclature began to assume

a solid lasting basis. It was the result, in fact, of an insensibly

growing necessity. Population was on the increase, commerce was

spreading, and society was fast becoming corporate. With all this arose

difficulties of individualization. It was impossible, without some

further distinction, to maintain a current identity. Hence what had been

but an occasional and irregular custom became a fixed and general

practice—the distinguishing sobriquet, not, as I say, of premeditation,

but by a silent compact, became part and parcel of a man’s property, and

passed on with his other possessions to his direct descendants. This

sobriquet had come to be of various kinds. It might be the designation

of the property owned, as in the case of the Norman barons and their

feudatory settlements, or it might be some local peculiarity that marked

the abode. It might be the designation of the craft the owner followed.

It might be the title of the rank or office he held. It might be a

patronymic—a name acquired from the personal or Christian name of his

father or mother. It might be some characteristic, mental or physical,

complimentary or the reverse. Any of these it might be, it mattered not

which; but when once it became attached to the possessor and gave him a

fixed identity, it clung to him for his life, and eventually passed on

to his offspring. Then it was that at length local and personal names

came somewhat upon the same level; and as the former, some centuries

before, had stereotyped the life of our various Celtic and Slavonic and

Teutonic settlements, so now these latter fossilized the character of

the era in which they arose; and here we have them, with all the

antiquity of their birth upon them, breathing of times and customs and

fashions and things that are now wholly passed from our eyes, or are so

completely changed as to bear but the faintest resemblance to that which

they have been. To analyse some of these names, for all were impossible,

is the purpose of the following chapters. I trust that ere I have

finished my task, I shall have been able to throw some little light, at

least, on the life and habits of our early English forefathers.

The reader will have observed that I have just incidentally alluded to

five different classes of names. For the sake of further distinction I

will place them formally and under more concise headings:—

1. Baptismal or personal names.

2. Local surnames.

3. Official surnames.

4. Occupative surnames.

5. Sobriquet surnames, or Nicknames.

I need scarcely add that under one of these five divisions will every

surname in all the countries of Europe be found.

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CHAPTER I.

PATRONYMIC SURNAMES.

It is impossible to say how important an influence have merely personal

names exercised upon our nomenclature. The most familiar surnames we can

meet with, saving that of ‘Smith,’ are to be found in this list. For

frequency we have no names to be compared with ‘Jones,’ or ‘Williamson,’

or ‘Thompson,’ or ‘Richardson.’ How they came into being is easily

manifest. Nothing could be more natural than that children should often

pass current in the community in which they lived as the sons of

‘Thomas,’ or ‘William,’ or ‘Richard,’ or ‘John;’ and that these several

relationships should be found in our directories as distinct sobriquets

only shows that there was a particular generation in these families in

which this title became permanent, and passed on to future descendants

as an hereditary surname.[2] The interest that attaches to these

patronymics is great—for it is by them we can best discover what names

were in vogue at this period, and what not, and of those which were, by

their relative frequency, in a measure, what were the most popular.

Certainly the change is most extraordinary when we compare the past with

the present. Some, once so popular that they scarce gave identity to the

bearer, are now all but obsolete, while numerous appellations at present

generally current were then utterly unknown. There are surnames familiar

to our ears whose root as a Christian name is now passed out of

knowledge; while, on the other hand, many a Christian name now daily

upon our lips has no surname formed from it to tell of any lengthened

existence. The fact is, that while our surnames, putting immigration

aside, have been long at a standstill, we have ever been and are still

adding to our stock of baptismal names.[3] Each new national crisis,

each fresh achievement of our arms, each new princely bride imported

from abroad—these events are being commemorated daily at the font. This

is but the continuance of a custom, and one very natural, which has ever

existed. Turn where we will in English history during the last eight

hundred years, and we shall find the popular sympathies seeking an

outlet in baptism. Did a prince of the blood royal meet with a hapless

and cruel fate? His memory was at once embalmed in the names of the

children born immediately afterwards, saving when a mother’s

superstitious fears came in to prevent it. Did some national hero arise

who upheld and asserted the people’s rights against a grinding and

hateful tyranny? His name is speedily to be found inscribed on every

hearth. The reverse is of equal significance. It is by the fact of a

name, which must have been of familiar import, finding few to represent

it, we can trace a people’s dislikes and a nation’s prejudices. A name

once in favour, as a rule, however, kept its place. The cause to which

it owed its rise had long passed into the shade of forgotten things, but

the name, if it had but attained a certain hold, seems easily to have

kept it, till indeed such a convulsion occurred as revolutionised men

and things and their names together.

There have been two such revolutionary crises in English nomenclature,

the Conquest and the Reformation, the second culminating in the Puritan

Commonwealth. Other crises have stamped themselves in indelible lines

upon our registers, but the indenture, if as strongly impressed, was far

less general, and in the main merely enlarged rather than changed our

stock of national names. Thus was it with the Crusades. A few of the

names it introduced have been popular ever since. Many, at first

received favourably, died out, if not with, at least soon after, the

subsidence of the spirit to which they owed their rise. Some of these

came from the Eastern Church, of whose existence at all the Crusader

seems to have suddenly reminded us. Some were Biblical, associated in

Bible narrative with the very soil the Templars trod. Some, again, were

borrowed from Continental comrades in arms, names which had caught the

fancy of those who introduced them, or were connected with friendly

rivalries and pledged friendships. This era, being concurrent with the

establishment of surnames, has left its mark upon our nomenclature; but

it was no revolution.

The period in which these names began to assume an hereditary character

varies so greatly that it is impossible to make any definite statement.

As a familiar custom I should say it arose in the twelfth century. But

there are places, both in Lancashire and Yorkshire, where, as in Wales,

men are wont to be styled to this very day by a complete string of

patronymics. To hear a man called ‘Bill’s o’Jack’s,’ ‘o’Dick’s,’

‘o’Harry’s,’ ‘o’Tom’s,’ is by no means a rare incident. A hit at this

formerly common Welsh practice is given in ‘Sir John Oldcastle,’ a play

printed in 1600, in which ran the following conversation:—

‘Judge: What bail? What sureties?

‘Davy: Her cozen ap Rice, ap Evan, ap Morice, ap Morgan, ap Llewellyn,

ap Madoc, ap Meredith, ap Griffin, ap Davis, ap Owen, ap Shinkin Jones.

‘Judge: Two of the most efficient are enow.

‘Sheriff: And ’t please your lordship, these are all but one.’

This ‘ap,’ the Welsh equivalent of our English ‘son,’ when it has come

before a name beginning with a vowel, has in many instances become

incorporated with it. Thus ‘Ap-Hugh’ has given us ‘Pugh,’ ‘Ap-Rice,’

just mentioned, ‘Price,’ or as ‘Reece,’ ‘Preece;’ ‘Ap-Owen,’ ‘Bowen;’

‘Ap-Evan,’ ‘Bevan;’ ‘Ap-Robert,’ ‘Probert;’ ‘Ap-Roger,’ ‘Prodger;’

‘Ap-Richard,’ ‘Pritchard;’ ‘Ap-Humphrey,’ ‘Pumphrey;’ ‘Ap-Ithell,’

‘Bethell;’[4] or ‘Ap-Howell,’ ‘Powell.’[5] ‘Prosser’ has generally been

thought a corruption of ‘proser,’ one who was garrulously inclined; but

this is a mistake, it is simply ‘Ap-Rosser.’ The Norman patronymic was

formed similarly as the Welsh, by a prefix, that of ‘fitz,’ the modern

French ‘fils.’ Surnames of this class were at first common. Thus we find

such names as ‘Fitz-Gibbon,’ ‘Fitz-Gerald,’ ‘Fitz-Patrick,’

‘Fitz-Waryn,’ ‘Fitz-Rauf,’ ‘Fitz-Payn,’ ‘Fitz-Richard,’ or ‘Fitz-Neele.’

But though this obtained for awhile among some of the nobler families of

our country, it has made in general no sensible impression upon our

surnames. The Saxon added ‘son,’ as a desinence, as ‘Williamson,’ that

is, ‘William’s son,’ or ‘Bolderson,’ that is, ‘Baldwin’s son,’ or merely

the genitive suffix, as ‘Williams,’ or ‘Richards.’ This class has been

wonderfully enlarged by the custom then in vogue, as now, of reducing

every baptismal name to some curt and familiar monosyllable. It agreed

with the rough-and-ready humour of the Anglo-Norman character so to do.

How common this was we may see from Gower’s description of the

insurrection of Wat Tyler:

‘Watte’ vocat, cui ‘Thoma’ venit, neque ‘Symme’ retardat,

‘Bat’-que ‘Gibbe’ simul, ‘Hykke’ venire jubent:

‘Colle’ furit, quem ‘Bobbe’ juvat nocumenta parantes,

Cum quibus, ad damnum ‘Wille’ coire volat—

‘Grigge’ rapit, dum ‘Davie’ strepit, comes est quibus ‘Hobbe,’

‘Larkin’ et in medio non minor esse putat:

‘Hudde’ ferit, quem ‘Judde’ terit, dum ‘Tibbe’ juvatur

‘Jacke’ domosque viros vellit, en ense necat—

Or let the author of ‘Piers Plowman’ speak. ‘Glutton’ having been

seduced to the alehouse door, we are told—

Then goeth ‘Glutton’ in and grete other after,

‘Cesse’ the souteresse sat on the bench:

‘Watte’ the warner and his wife bothe:

‘Tymme’ the tynkere and twayne of his ’prentices.

‘Hikke’ the hackney man and ‘Hugh’ the nedlere,

‘Clarice’ of Cokkeslane, and the clerke of the churche;

‘Dawe’ the dykere, and a dozen othere.

In these two quotations we see at once the clue to the extraordinary

number of patronymics our directories contain of these short and

curtailed forms. Thus ‘Dawe,’ from ‘David,’ gives us ‘Dawson,’ or

‘Dawes;’ ‘Hikke’ from ‘Isaac,’ ‘Hickson,’ or ‘Hicks;’ ‘Watte,’ from

‘Walter,’ ‘Watson,’ or ‘Watts.’ Nor was this all. A large addition was

made to this category by the introduction of a further element. This

arose from the nursery practice of giving pet names. Much as this is

done now, it would seem to have been still more common then. In either

period the method has been the same—that of turning the name into a

diminutive. Our very word ‘pet’ itself is but the diminutive ‘petite,’

or ‘little one.’ The fashion adopted, however, was different. We are

fond of using ‘ie,’ or ‘ley.’ Thus with us ‘John’ becomes ‘Johnnie,’

‘Edward,’ ‘Teddie,’ ‘Charles,’ ‘Charley.’ In early days the four

diminutives in use were those of ‘kin,’ ‘cock,’ and the terminations

‘ot’ or ‘et,’ and ‘on’ or ‘en,’ the two latter being of Norman-French

origin.

1. _Kin._—This Saxon term, corresponding with the German ‘chen,’ and the

French ‘on’ or ‘en,’ referred to above, and introduced, most probably,

so far as the immediate practice was concerned, by the Flemings, we

still preserve in such words as ‘manikin,’ ‘pipkin,’ ‘lambkin,’ or

‘doitkin.’ This is very familiar as a nominal adjunct. Thus, in an old

poem, entitled ‘A Litul soth Sermun,’ we find the following:—

Nor those prude yongemen

That loveth ‘Malekyn,’

And those prude maydenes

That loveth ‘Janekyn;’

At chirche and at chepynge

When they togadere come

They runneth togaderes

And speaketh of derne love.

————

Masses and matins

Ne kepeth they nouht,

For ‘Wilekyn’ and ‘Watekyn’

Be in their thouht—

Hence we have derived such surnames as ‘Simpkins’ and ‘Simpkinson,’

‘Thompkins’ and ‘Tomkinson.’

2. _Cock._—Our nursery literature still secures in its ‘cock-robins,’

‘cock-boats,’ and ‘cock-horses,’ the immortality of this second

termination. It forms an important element in such names as ‘Simcox,’

‘Jeffcock,’ ‘Wilcock,’ or ‘Wilcox,’ and ‘Laycock’ (Lawrence).

3. _Ot_ or _et_.—These terminations were introduced by the Normans, and

certainly have made an impregnable position for themselves in our

English nomenclature. In our dictionaries they are found in such

diminutives as ‘pocket’ (little poke), ‘ballot,’ ‘chariot,’ ‘target,’

‘latchet,’ ‘lancet;’ in our directories in such names as ‘Emmett,’ or

‘Emmot’ (Emma), ‘Tillotson’ (Matilda), ‘Elliot’ (Elias), ‘Marriot’

(Mary), ‘Willmot’ (Willamot), and ‘Hewet,’ or ‘Hewetson’ (Hugh).[6]

4. _On_ or _en_.—These terminations became very popular with the French,

and their directories teem with the evidences they display of former

favour. They are all but unknown to our English dictionary, but many

traces of their presence may be found in our nomenclature. Thus ‘Robert’

became ‘Robin,’ ‘Nicol’ ‘Colin,’ ‘Pierre’ ‘Perrin,’ ‘Richard’ ‘Diccon,’

‘Mary’ ‘Marion,’ ‘Alice’ ‘Alison,’ ‘Beatrice’ ‘Beton,’ ‘Hugh’ ‘Huon,’ or

‘Huguon’; and hence such surnames as ‘Colinson,’ ‘Perrin,’ ‘Dicconson,’

‘Allison’ (in some cases), ‘Betonson,’ ‘Huggins,’ and ‘Hugginson.’[7]

I have already said that the Norman invasion revolutionised our system

of personal names. Certainly it is in this the antagonism between

Norman and Saxon is especially manifest. Occasionally, in looking over

the records of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we may light upon

a ‘Godwin,’ or ‘Guthlac,’ or ‘Goddard,’ but they are of the most

exceptional occurrence. Were the local part of these entries foreign,

explanation would be unneeded. But while the personal element is

foreign, the local denotes settlement from the up-country. Look at the

London population of this period from such records as we possess.

There is scarcely a hamlet, however small, that does not contribute to

swell the sum of the metropolitan mass, and while ‘London’ itself is

of comparatively great rarity in our nomenclature, an insignificant

village like, say Debenham, in Suffolk, will have its score of

representatives—so great was the flow, so small the ebb. It is this

large accession from the interior which is the stronghold of Saxon

nomenclature. It is this removal from one village to another, and from

one town to another, which has originated that distich quoted by old

Vestigan—

In ‘ford,’ in ‘ham,’ in ‘ley,’ in ‘ton,’

The most of English surnames run.

And yet, strange as it may seem, it is very doubtful whether for a

lengthened period, at least, the owners of these names were of Saxon

origin. The position of the Saxon peasantry forbade that they should be

in any but a small degree accessory to this increase. The very villenage

they lived under, the very manner in which they were attached to the

glebe, rendered any such roving tendencies as these impossible. These

country adventurers, then, whose names I have instanced, were of no

Saxon stock, but the sons of the humbler dependants of those Normans who

had obtained landed settlements, or of Norman traders who had travelled

up the country, fixing their habitation wheresoever the wants of an

increasing people seemed to give them an opportunity of gaining a

livelihood. The children of such, driven out of these smaller

communities by the fact that there was no further opening for them, poor

as the villeins amongst whom they dwelt, but different in that they were

free, would naturally resort to the metropolis and other large centres

of industry. Not a few, however, would belong to the free Saxons, who,

much against their will, no doubt, but for the sake of gain, would pass

in the community to which they had joined themselves by the name

belonging to the more powerful and mercantile party. In the same way,

too, some not small proportion of these names would belong to those

Saxon serfs who, having escaped their bondage, would, on reaching the

towns, change their names to elude detection. These, of course, would be

got from the Norman category. But be all this as it may, the fact

remains that throughout all the records and rolls of the twelfth and

thirteenth centuries, we find, with but the rarest exceptions, all our

personal names to be Norman. The Saxon seems to have become well-nigh

extinct. There might have been a war of extermination against them. In

an unbroken succession we meet with such names as ‘John’ and ‘Richard,’

‘Robert’ and ‘Henry,’ ‘Thomas’ and ‘Ralph,’ ‘Geoffrey’ and ‘Jordan,’

‘Stephen’ and ‘Martin,’ ‘Joscelyn’ and ‘Almaric,’ ‘Benedict’ and

‘Laurence,’ ‘Reginald’ and ‘Gilbert,’ ‘Roger’ and ‘Walter,’ ‘Eustace’

and ‘Baldwin,’ ‘Francis’ and ‘Maurice,’ ‘Theobald’ and ‘Cecil,’—no

‘Edward,’ no ‘Edmund,’ no ‘Harold’ even, saving in very isolated cases.

It is the same with female names. While ‘Isabel’ and ‘Matilda,’

‘Mirabilla’ and ‘Avelina,’ ‘Amabilla’ and ‘Idonia,’ ‘Sibilla’ and ‘Ida,’

‘Letitia’ and ‘Agnes,’ ‘Petronilla’ or ‘Parnel’ and ‘Lucy,’ ‘Alicia’ and

‘Avice,’ ‘Alianora,’ or ‘Anora’ and ‘Dowsabell,’ ‘Clarice’ and ‘Muriel,’

‘Agatha’ and ‘Rosamund,’ ‘Felicia’ and ‘Adelina,’ ‘Julia’ and ‘Blanche,’

‘Isolda’ and ‘Amelia’ or ‘Emilia,’ ‘Beatrix’ and ‘Euphemia,’ ‘Annabel’

and ‘Theophania,’ ‘Constance’ and ‘Joanna’ abound; ‘Etheldreda,’ or

‘Edith,’ or ‘Ermentrude,’ all of the rarest occurrence, are the only

names which may breathe to us of purely Saxon times. In the case of

several, however, a special effort was made later on, when the policy of

allaying the jealous feelings of the popular class was resorted to. For

a considerable time the royal and chief baronial families had in their

pride sought names for their children from the Norman category merely.

After the lapse of a century, however, finding the Saxon spirit still

chafed and uneasy under a foreign thrall, several names of a popular

character were introduced into the royal nursery. Thus was it with

‘Edward’ and ‘Edmund.’ The former of these appellations was represented

by Edward I., the latter by his brother Edmund, Earl of Lancaster.

Previously to this, too, an attempt had been made to restore the British

‘Arthur’ in that nephew of Cœur de Lion who so miserably perished by his

uncle’s means, and thereby gave Lackland a securer hold upon the English

throne, if not upon the affections of the country. The sad and gloomy

mystery which surrounded the disappearance of this boy-prince seems to

have inspired mothers with a superstitious awe of the name, for we do

not find, as in the case of ‘Edward’ or ‘Edmund,’ its royal restoration

having the effect of making it general.[8] On the contrary, as an effort

in its favour, it seems to have signally failed. Of all our early

historic names I find fewest relics of this.

The difficulty of subdividing our first chapter is great, but for the

sake of convenience we have decided to preserve the following order:—

1. Names that preceded and survived the Conquest.

2. Names introduced or confirmed by the Normans.

3. Names from the Calendar of the Saints.

4. Names from Festivals and Holy-days.

5. Patronymics formed from occupations and officerships.

6. Metronymics.

7. Names from Holy Scripture.

I.—_Names that preceded and survived the Conquest._

The peculiar feature of the great majority of such names as were in

vogue previous to the Norman Conquest, and which to a certain extent

maintained a hold, is that (saving in two or three instances) they did

not attach to themselves either filial or pet desinences. If they have

come down to us as surnames, they are found in their simple unaltered

dress. Thus, taking Afred as an example, we see in our directories

‘Alfred’ or ‘Alured’ or ‘Allured’ to be the only patronymics that have

been handed down to us. Latinized as Aluredus it figures in Domesday.

The Hundred Rolls, later on, register an Alured Ape, and the surname

appears in the Parliamentary Writs in the case of William Alured. It is

hard to separate our ‘Aldreds’ from our ‘Allureds.’ The usually entered

forms are ‘Richard Alred,’ ‘Hugh Aldred,’ or ‘Aldred fil. Roger.’

Besides ‘Aldred’ there is ‘Alderson,’ which may be but ‘Aldredson.’

Aylwin is met by such entries as Richard Alwine, or Thomas Ailwyne:

‘Adelard,’ as ‘Adlard’ or ‘Alard,’ and ‘Agilward’ as ‘Aylward,’ are of

more frequent occurrence; while Aldrech, once merely a personal name, is

now, like many of the above, found only surnominally.

The Teutonic mythology is closely interwoven in several of these names.

The primary root ‘god’ or ‘good,’ which stood in all Teuton languages as

the title of divinity, was familiarised as the chief component in not a

few of our still existing surnames. ‘Godwin,’ the name which the stout

old earl of Danish blood has given to our Goodwin Sands, seems to have

been well established when the great Survey was made. The French ‘Godin’

seems scarcely to have crossed the Channel, but ‘Godwin’ and ‘Goodwin’

have well filled up the gap. ‘Hugh fil. Godewin,’ or ‘Godwin de Dovre,’

represent our registers. Our ‘Godbolds’ are found in the dress of

‘Godbolde,’ our ‘Goodiers’ and ‘Goodyears’ as ‘Goder’ or ‘Godyer,’ and

our ‘Goddards’ as ‘Godard.’ The Hundred Rolls give us a ‘John fil.

Godard.’ The Alpine mountain reminds us of its connection with

‘Gotthard,’ and Miss Yonge states that it is still in use as a Christian

name in Germany. ‘Gottschalk,’ a common surname in the same country, was

well known as a personal name in England in the forms of

‘Godescalde,’[9] ‘Godescall,’ or ‘Godeschalke,’ such entries as ‘Godefry

fil. Godescallus,’ or ‘Godeskalcus Armorer,’ or ‘John Godescalde,’ being

not unfrequent. The latter name suggests to us our ‘Godsalls’ and

‘Godshalls’ as the present English surnominal forms. ‘Gottschalk’ in our

directories may always be looked upon as a more recent importation from

Germany. Goderic was perhaps the commonest of this class—its usual dress

in our registers being ‘Gooderick,’ ‘Goderiche,’ ‘Godrick,’ and

‘Godric.’ An early Saxon abbot was exalted into the ranks of the saints

as ‘St. Goderic,’ and this would have its influence in the selection of

baptismal names at that period. ‘Guthlac,’ not without descendants, too,

though less easily recognisable in our ‘Goodlakes’ and ‘Goodlucks,’ and

‘Geoffrey,’ or ‘Godfrey,’ whom I shall have occasion to mention again,

belong to the same category.[10] The last of this class I may mention is

the old ‘Godeberd,’ or ‘Godbert.’ As simple ‘Godeberd’ it is found in

such a name as ‘Roger Godeberd,’ met with in the London Tower records.

Somewhat more corrupted we come across a ‘John Gotebedde’ in the Hundred

Rolls of the thirteenth century; and much about the same time a ‘Robert

Gotobedd’ lived in Winchelsea. In this latter form, I need scarcely say,

it has now a somewhat flourishing existence in our midst. Some will be

reminded of the lines:—

Mr. Barker’s as mute as a fish in the sea,

Mr. Miles never moves on a journey,

Mr. Gotobed sits up till half-after three,

Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney.

Still, despite its long antiquity, when I recall the pretty Godbert from

which it arose, I would, were I one of them, _go to bed_ as such some

night for the last time, nor get up again till I could dress, if not my

person, at least my personality in its real and more antique habiliment.

‘Os,’ as a root-word implicative of deity, has made for itself a firm

place in our ‘Osbalds,’ ‘Osberts,’ ‘Oswins,’ ‘Oswalds,’ ‘Osbornes,’ and

‘Osmunds’ or ‘Osmonds.’ Instances of all these may be seen in our older

registries. We quickly light upon entries such as ‘Osbert le Ferrur,’

‘Osborne le Hawkere,’ ‘Oswin Ogle,’ ‘Nicholas Osemund,’ or ‘John

Oswald.’ Nor must ‘Thor,’ the ‘Jupiter tonans’ of the Norsemen, be left

out, for putting aside local names, and the day of the week that still

memorialises him, we have yet several surnames that speak of his

influence. ‘Thurstan’ and ‘Thurlow’ seem both of kin. ‘Thorald,’

however, has made the greatest mark, and next ‘Thurkell.’ Thorald may be

seen in ‘Torald Chamberlain’ (A), Ralph fil. Thorald (A), or Torald

Benig (A); while Thurkell or Thurkill is found first in the fuller form

in such entries as ‘Richard Thyrketyll,’ or ‘Robert Thirkettle,’ and

then in the contracted in ‘Thurkeld le Seneschal,’ or ‘Robert Thurkel.’

We have just referred to Thurkettle. ‘Kettle’ was very closely connected

with the mythology of Northern Europe, and is still a great name in

Norway and in Iceland. The sacrificial cauldron of the gods must

certainly have been vividly present to the imagination of our

forefathers. The list of names compounded with ‘Kettle’ is large even in

England. The simple ‘Kettle’ was very common. In Domesday it is

‘Chetill,’ in the Hundred Rolls ‘Ketel’ or ‘Cetyl’ or ‘Cattle.’ Such

entries as ‘Ketel le Mercer,’ or ‘Chetel Frieday,’ or ‘Cattle Bagge,’

are met with up to the fifteenth century, and as surnames ‘Kettle,’

‘Chettle’ and ‘Cattle’ or ‘Cattell’ have a well-established place in the

nineteenth. Of the compound forms we have already noticed ‘Thurkettle’

or ‘Thurkell.’ ‘Anketil le Mercir’ (A), ‘Roger Arketel’ (A), ‘William

Asketill’ (Q), and ‘Robert fil. Anskitiel’ (W. 12) are all but changes

rung on Oskettle. The abbots of England, in 941, 992, and 1052, were

‘Turketyl,’ ‘Osketyl,’ and ‘Wulfketyl’ respectively. The last seems to

be the same as ‘Ulchetel’ found in Domesday.[11] In the same Survey we

light upon a ‘Steinchetel,’ and ‘Grinketel’ is also found in a Yorkshire

record of the same period.[12] Orm, the representative of pagan worship

in respect of the serpent, has left its memorial in such entries as

‘Alice fil. Orme,’ or ‘Ormus Archbragge.’ The descendants of these are

our ‘Ormes’ and ‘Ormesons.’ More local names abide in ‘Ormsby,’

‘Ormskirk,’ ‘Ormerod,’ and ‘Ormes Head.’

A series of names, some of them connected with the heroic and legendary

lore of Northern Europe, were formed from the root ‘sig’—conquest. Many

of these maintained a position as personal names long after the Norman

invasion, and now exist in our directories as surnames. Nevertheless, as

with the others hitherto mentioned, they are all but invariably found in

their simple and uncompounded form. Our ‘Sewards,’ ‘Seawards,’ and

‘Sawards’ represent the chief of these. It is found in England in the

seventh century, and was a great Danish name. Entries like ‘Syward

Godwin’ or ‘Siward Oldcorn’ are found as late as the beginning of the

fourteenth century. Next we may mention our ‘Segars,’ ‘Sagars,’

‘Sahers,’ ‘Sayers,’ and ‘Saers,’ undoubted descendants of such men as

‘Saher de Quincy,’ the famous old Earl of Winchester. The registrations

of this as a personal name are very frequent. Such entries as ‘John fil.

Saer,’ ‘Saher Clerk,’ ‘Saher le King,’ or ‘Eudo fil. Sygar,’ are common.

Nor has ‘Sigbiorn’ been allowed to become obsolete, as our ‘Sibornes’

and ‘Seabornes’ can testify. I cannot discover any instance of ‘Sibbald’

as a personal name after the Domesday Survey, but as a relic of

‘Sigbald’ it is still living in a surnominal form. Though apparently

occupative, our registers clearly proclaim that ‘Seman’ or ‘Seaman’ must

be set here. As a personal name it is found in such designations as

‘Seman de Champagne,’ or ‘Seaman de Baylif,’ or ‘Seaman Carpenter.’ With

the mention of ‘Sebright’ as a corruption of ‘Sigbert’ or ‘Sebert,’ I

pass on; but this is sufficient to show that a name whose root-meaning

implied heroism was popular with our forefathers.

The popular notion that ‘Howard’ is nothing but ‘Hogward’ is not borne

out by facts. We find no trace whatever of its gradual reduction into

such a corrupt form. As we shall have occasion to show hereafter, it is

our ‘Hoggarts’ who thus maintain the honours of our swine-tending

ancestors. There can be little doubt, indeed, that ‘Howard’ is but

another form of ‘Harvard’ or ‘Hereward.’ That it had early become so

pronounced and spelt we can prove by an entry occurring in the Test.

Ebor. (Surt. Soc.) where one ‘John Fitz-howard’ is registered. Our

‘Hermans’ and ‘Harmans’ represent ‘Herman,’ a name which, though in

early use in England, we owe chiefly to immigration in later days. Such

entries as ‘Herman de Francia’ or ‘Herman de Alemannia’ are occasionally

met with. The fuller patronymic attached itself to this name; hence such

entries as ‘Walter Hermanson,’ and ‘John Urmynson,’ ‘Harmer,’ and

‘Hermer,’ seem to be somewhat of kin to the last. The personal form is

found in ‘Robert fil. Hermer,’ and the surname in ‘Hopkins Harmar.’

Besides ‘Hardwin,’ ‘Hadwin’ is also met with as a relic of the same,

while ‘Harding’ has remained unaltered from the day when registrars

entered such names as ‘Robert fil. Harding’ and ‘Maurice fil. Harding;’

but this, as ‘Fitz-harding’ reminds us, must be looked upon as of Norman

introduction. Nor must ‘Swain’ be forgotten. We find in the Survey the

wife of ‘Edward filius Suani,’ figuring among the tenants-in-chief of

Essex. This is of course but our present ‘Swainson’ or ‘Swanson;’ and

when we add all the ‘Swains,’ ‘Swayns,’ and ‘Swaynes’ of our directories

we shall find that this name has a tolerably assured position in the

nineteenth century. ‘Swain’ implied strength, specially the strength of

youth; and as Samson’s strength became utter weakness through his

affection, so I suppose it has fared with ‘Swain.’ The country shepherd

piping to his mistress, the lovesick bachelor, has monopolised the

title. As a personal name it occurs in such registrations as ‘Sweyn

Colle,’ ‘Swanus le Riche,’ or ‘Adam fil. Swain.’

II.—_Names introduced or confirmed by the Normans._

Of names specially introduced at the Conquest, or that received an

impulse by that event, we may mention ‘Serl’ and ‘Harvey.’ ‘Serl,’ found

in such names as ‘Serle Morice’ or ‘Serle Gotokirke,’ or ‘John fil.

Serlo,’ still abides in our ‘Searles’ and ‘Serles,’ ‘Serrells’ and

‘Serlsons.’ ‘William Serleson’ occurs in an old Yorkshire register, and

‘Richard Serelson’ in the Parliamentary Writs. The Norman diminutive

also appears in Matilda Sirlot (A) and Mabel Sirlot (A).[13] ‘Harvey,’

or ‘Herve,’ was more common than many may imagine, and a fair number of

entries such as ‘Herveus le Gos’ or ‘William fil. Hervei,’ may be seen

in all our large rolls. The Malvern poet in his ‘Piers Plowman’ employs

the name:—

And thanne cam Coveitise,

Can I hym naght descryve,

So hungrily and holwe

Sire Hervy hym loked.

‘Arnold,’ now almost unknown in England as a baptismal name, made a deep

impression on our nomenclature, as it did on that of Central Europe.

‘Earn’ for the eagle is a word not yet obsolete in the North of England,

and this reminds us of the origin of the name. This kinship is more

easily traceable in our registries where the usual forms are ‘Ernaldus

Carnifix,’ or ‘Peter Ernald.’ Besides ‘Arnold,’ ‘Arnison,’ and the

diminutive ‘Arnott’ or ‘Arnet’[14] still live among us. ‘Alberic,’ or

‘Albrec,’ as we find it occasionally written, soon found its way into

our rolls as ‘Aubrey,’ although, as Ælfric, Miss Yonge shows it to have

existed in our country centuries earlier.[15] ‘Albred,’ probably but

another form of the lately revived ‘Albert,’ is now found as ‘Allbright’

and the German ‘Albrecht.’

‘Emery,’ though now utterly forgotten as a personal name, may be said to

live on only in our surnames. It was once no unimportant sobriquet.

‘Americ,’ ‘Almeric,’ ‘Almaric,’ ‘Emeric,’ and ‘Eimeric,’ seem to have

been its original spellings in England, and thus, at least, it is more

likely to remind us that it is the same name to which, in the Italian

form of Amerigo, we now owe the title of that vast expanse of western

territory which is so indissolubly connected with English industry and

English interests. Curter forms than these were found in ‘Aylmar,’

‘Ailmar,’ ‘Almar,’ and ‘Aymer,’ and ‘Amar.’ The surnames it has

bequeathed to us are not few. It has had the free run of the vowels in

our ‘Amorys,’ ‘Emerys,’ and ‘Imarys,’ and in a more patronymic form we

may still oftentimes meet with it in our ‘Emersons,’ ‘Embersons,’[16]

and ‘Imesons.’ ‘Ingram’ represents the old ‘Ingelram,’ ‘Engleram,’

‘Iggelram,’ or ‘Ingeram,’ for all these forms may be met with; and

‘Ebrardus,’ later on registered as ‘Eborard,’ still abides hale and

hearty in our ‘Everards’ and ‘Everys.’ The latter, however, can scarcely

be said to be quite extinct as a baptismal name. ‘Waleran,’ an English

form of the foreign ‘Valerian,’ is found in such an entry as ‘Walerand

Berchamstead,’ or ‘Waldrand Clark,’ or ‘Walran Oldman.’ We see at once

the origin of our ‘Walronds’ and ‘Walrands.’ The name of ‘Brice’ begins

to find itself located in England at this time. Hailing from Denmark, it

may have come in with the earlier raids from that shore, or later on in

the more peaceful channels of trade. The Hundred Rolls furnish us with

‘Brice fil. William’ and ‘Brice le Parsun,’ while the Placita de Quo

Warranto gives us a ‘Brice le Daneys,’ who himself proclaims the

nationality of the name. The Norman diminutive is met with in ‘Briccot

de Brainton’ (M M). ‘Brice’ and ‘Bryson’ (when not a corruption of

‘Bride-son’) are the present representatives of this now forgotten

name.[17] All the above names I have placed together, because, while

introduced or receiving an impetus by the incoming of the Normans and

their followers, they have, nevertheless, made little impression on our

general nomenclature. The fact that, with but one or two exceptions, the

usual pet addenda, ‘kin,’ ‘cock,’ and ‘ot,’ or ‘et,’ are absolutely

wanting, or even the patronymic ‘son,’ shows decisively that they cannot

be numbered among what we must call the popular names of the period.

Introduced here and there in the community at large, they struggled on

for bare existence, and have descended to us as surnames in their simple

and unaltered form.

We now turn to a batch of personal names of a different character, names

which, with a few exceptions, are still familiar to us at baptismal

celebrations, and which have changed themselves into so many varying

forms, that the surnames issuing from them are well-nigh legion. Most of

these are the direct result of the Conquest. They are either the

sobriquets borne by William, his family, and his leading followers, or

by those whom connections of blood, alliance, and interest afterwards

brought into the country. Many others received their solid settlement in

England through the large immigration of foreign artisans from Normandy,

from Picardy, Anjou, Flanders, and other provinces. The Flemish

influence has been very strong.

I will first mention Drew, Warin, Paine, Ivo, and Hamon, because,

although they must be included among the most familiar names of their

time, they are now practically disused at the font. ‘Drew,’ or ‘Drogo,’

occurs several times in Domesday. An illegitimate son of Charlemagne was

so styled, and, doubtless, it owed its familiarity to the adherents of

the Conqueror. Later on, at any rate, it was firmly established, as such

names as Drew Drewery, Druco Bretun, or William fil. Drogo testify. That

‘Drewett’ is derived from the Norman diminutive can be proved from the

Hundred Rolls, wherein the same man is described in the twofold form of

‘Drogo Malerbe’ and ‘Druett Malerbe.’ The feminine ‘Druetta de Pratello’

is also found in the same records. ‘Drew’ and ‘Drewett’ are both in our

directories.[18] Few names were more common from the eleventh to the

fourteenth century than ‘Warin,’ or ‘Guarin,’ or ‘Guerin’—the latter the

form at present generally found in France. It is the sobriquet that is

incorporated in our ancient ‘Mannerings,’ or ‘Mainwarings,’ a family

that came from the ‘mesnil,’ or ‘manor,’ of ‘Warin,’ in a day when that

was a familiar Christian name in Norman households. A few generations

later on we find securely settled among ourselves such names as ‘Warin

Chapman,’ or ‘Warinus Gerold,’ or ‘Guarinus Banastre,’ in the baptismal,

and ‘Warinus Fitz-Warin,’ or ‘John Warison,’ in the patronymic form,

holding a steady place in our mediæval rolls. Two of the characters in

‘Piers Plowman,’ as those who have read it will remember, bear this as

their personal sobriquet:—

One Waryn Wisdom

And Witty his fere

Followed him faste.

And again—

Then wente Wisdom

And Sire Waryn the Witty

And warnede wrong.

‘Robert Warinot,’ in the Hundred Rolls, and ‘William Warinot’ in the

Placita de Quo Warranto, reveal the origin of our ‘Warnetts;’ while our

‘Wareings,’ ‘Warings,’ ‘Warisons,’ ‘Wasons,’ and ‘Fitz-Warins’—often

written ‘Fitz-Warren’—not to mention the majority of our ‘Warrens,’[19]

are other of the descendants of this famous old name that still survive.

A favourite name in these days was ‘Payn,’ or ‘Pagan.’ The softer form

is given us in the ‘Man of Lawes Tale’—

The Constable, and Dame Hermegild his wife,

Were payenes, and that country everywhere.

We all know the history of the word; how that, while the Gospel had made

advance in the cities, but not yet penetrated into the country, the

dwellers in the latter became looked upon with a something of contempt

as idolaters, so that, so far as this word was concerned, ‘countryman’

and ‘false-worshipper’ became synonymous terms. In fact, ‘pagan’

embraced the two meanings that ‘peasant’ and ‘pagan’ now convey, though

the root of both is the same. The Normans, it would appear, must have so

styled some of themselves who had refused baptism after that their

chieftain, Rollo, had become a convert; and hence, when William came

over, the name was introduced into England by several of his followers.

In Domesday Book we find among his tenants-in-chief the names of ‘Ralph

Paganel’ and ‘Edmund fil. Pagani.’ The name became more popular as time

went on, and it is no exaggeration to say that at one period—viz., the

close of the Norman dynasty—it had threatened to become one of the most

familiar appellatives in England. This will account for the frequency

with which we meet such entries in the past as ‘Robert fil. Pain,’ ‘Pain

del Ash,’ ‘Pagan de la Hale,’ ‘Roger fil. Pagan,’ ‘Payen le Dubbour,’ or

‘Elis le Fitz-Payn,’ and such surnames in the present as ‘Pagan,’

‘Payne,’ ‘Payn,’ ‘Paine,’ ‘Pain,’ and ‘Pynson.’ The diminutive also was

not wanting, as ‘John Paynett’ (Z) or ‘Emma Paynot’ (W 2) could have

testified. Thus, while in our dictionaries ‘pagan’ still represents a

state of heathenism, in our directories it has long ago been converted

to the uses of Christianity, and become at the baptismal font a

Christian name. ‘Ivar,’ or ‘Iver,’ still familiarised to Scotchmen in

‘Mac-Iver,’ came to the Normans from the northern lands whence they were

sprung, and with them into England. It was not its first appearance

here, as St. Ives of Huntingdonshire could have testified in the seventh

century. Still its popular character was due to the Norman. Such names

as ‘Yvo de Taillbois’ (1211), mentioned in Bishop Pudsey’s ‘Survey of

the Durham See,’ ‘Ivo le Mercer,’ ‘Walter fil. Ive,’ ‘William Iveson,’

‘Iveta Millisent,’ or ‘John fil. Ivette,’ serve to show us how familiar

was this appellation with both sexes.[20] Nor are its descendants

inclined to let its memory die. We have the simple ‘Ive’ and ‘Ives;’ we

have the more patronymic ‘Iverson,’ ‘Ivison,’ ‘Iveson,’ and ‘Ison,’ and

the pet ‘Ivetts’ and ‘Ivatts,’ the latter possibly feminine in origin.

‘Hamo,’ or ‘Hamon,’ requires a paragraph for itself. It is firmly

imbedded in our existing nomenclature, and has played an important part

in its time. Its forms were many, and though obsolete as baptismal

names, all have survived as surnames. Of these may be mentioned our

‘Hamons,’ ‘Haymons,’ ‘Aymons,’ and ‘Fitz-Aymons.’ Formed like ‘Rawlyn,’

‘Thomlin,’ and ‘Cattlin,’ it bequeathed us ‘Hamlyn,’ a relic of such

folk as ‘Hamelyn de Trap’ or ‘Osbert Hamelyn.’ Another change rung on

the name is traceable in such entries as ‘Hamund le Mestre,’ ‘Hamond

Cobeler,’ or ‘John Fitz-Hamond,’ the source of our ‘Hammonds’ and

‘Hamonds;’ while in ‘Alice Hamundson’ or ‘William Hamneson’ we see the

lineage of our many ‘Hampsons.’ But these are the least important. The

Norman-French diminutive, ‘Hamonet,’ speedily corrupted into ‘Hamnet’

and ‘Hammet,’ became one of our favourite baptismal names, and towards

the reign of Elizabeth one of the commonest. A ‘Hamnet de Dokinfield’ is

found so early as 1270 at Manchester (Didsbury Ch. Cheth. Soc.).

Shakespeare’s son was baptized ‘Hamnet,’ and was so called after ‘Hamnet

Sadler,’ a friend of the poet’s—a baker at Stratford. This man is styled

‘Hamlet’ also, reminding us of another pet form of the name. We have

already mentioned ‘Richard,’ ‘Christian,’ ‘Hugh,’ and ‘Hobbe,’ as

severally giving birth to the diminutives, ‘Rickelot,’ ‘Crestelot,’

‘Huelot,’ and ‘Hobelot.’ In the same way, ‘Hamon’ became ‘Hamelot,’ or

‘Hamelet,’ hence such entries as ‘Richard, son of Hamelot’ (AA 2), and

‘Hamelot de la Burste’ (Cal. and Inv. of Treasury). Out of fifteen

‘Hamnets’ set down in ‘Wills and Inventories’ (Cheth. Soc.), six are

recorded as ‘Hamlet,’ one being set down in both forms as ‘Hamnet

Massey’ and ‘Hamlet Massey’ (cf. i. 148, ii. 201). If the reader will

look through the index of Blomefield’s ‘Norfolk,’ he will find that

‘Hamlet’ in that county had taken the entire place of ‘Hamnet.’ Amid a

large number of the former I cannot find one of the latter. It would be

a curious question how far Shakespeare was biassed by the fact of having

a ‘Hamlet’ in his nursery into changing ‘Hambleth’ (the original title

of the story) to the form he has now immortalized. An open Bible, and,

further on, a Puritan spirit have left their influence on no name more

markedly than ‘Hamon.’ As one after another new Bible character was

commemorated at the font, ‘Hamon’ got crushed out. Its last refuge has

been found in our directories, for so long as our ‘Hamlets,’ ‘Hamnets,’

‘Hammets,’ ‘Hammonds,’ and ‘Hampsons’ exist, it cannot be utterly

forgotten.

‘Guy,’ or ‘Guyon,’ dates from the ‘Round Table,’ but it was reserved for

the Norman to make his name so familiar to English lips. The best proof

of this is that the surnames which it has left to us are all but

entirely formed from the Norman-French diminutive ‘Guyot,’ which in

England became, of course, ‘Wyot.’ Hence such entries as ‘Wyot fil.

Helias,’ or ‘Wyott Carpenter,’ or ‘Wyot Balistarius.’ The descendants of

these, I need scarcely say, are our ‘Wyatts.’ But the Norman initial was

not entirely lost. ‘Aleyn Gyot’ is found in the ‘Rolls of Parliament;’

and ‘Guyot’ and ‘Guyatt’ testify to its existence in the nineteenth

century.[21] ‘Ralph,’ or ‘Radulf,’ of whom there were thirty-eight in

Domesday, has survived in a number of forms. Our ‘Raffs’ and ‘Raffsons’

can carry back their descent to days when ‘Raffe Barton’ or ‘Peter

Raffson’ thus signed themselves. The favourite pet forms were ‘Rawlin’

and ‘Randle;’ hence such entries as ‘Raulyn de la Fermerie,’ ‘Raulina de

Briston,’ or ‘Randle de la Mill.’ To these it is we owe our ‘Rawlins,’

‘Rawlings,’ ‘Rawlinsons,’ ‘Rollins,’ ‘Rollinsons,’ ‘Randles’ and

‘Randalls.’ Other and more ordinary corruptions are found in ‘Rawes,’

‘Rawson,’ ‘Rawkins,’ ‘Rapkins,’ and ‘Rapson.’ The reader may easily see

from this that ‘Ralph,’ from occupying a place in the foremost rank of

early favourites, is content now to stand in the very rear.

There are a number of names still in use, although not so popular as

they once were, which were brought in directly by the Normans, and which

were closely connected with the real or imaginary stories of which

Charlemagne was the central figure. Italy, France, and Spain possess a

larger stock than we do of this class, but those which did reach our

shores made for themselves a secure position. ‘Charles,’ by some strange

accident, did not obtain a place in England, nor is it to be found in

our registers, saving in the most isolated instances, till Charles the

First, by his misfortunes, made it one of the commonest in the land. In

France, as Sir Walter Scott, in ‘Quentin Durward,’ reminds us, the pet

form was ‘Charlot’ and ‘Charlat.’ This, as a surname, soon found its way

to England, where it has existed for many centuries. The feminine

‘Charlotte,’ since the death of the beloved Princess of that name, has

become almost a household word. Putting aside ‘Charles,’ then, the

Paladins have bequeathed us ‘Roland,’ ‘Oliver,’ ‘Robert,’ ‘Richard,’

‘Roger,’ ‘Reginald,’ ‘Reynard,’ and ‘Miles.’ We see at once in these

names the parentage of some of our most familiar surnames. ‘Oliver’ was,

perhaps, the least popular so far as numbers were concerned, and might

have died out entirely had not the Protector Cromwell brought it again

into notoriety. ‘Oliver,’ ‘Olver,’ ‘Ollier,’ and ‘Oliverson’ are the

present forms, and these are met by such entries as ‘Jordan Olyver,’ or

‘Philip fil. Oliver.’ ‘Roland,’ or ‘Orlando,’ was the nephew of the

great Charles, who fell in his peerless might at Roncesvalles. Of him

and Oliver, Walter Scott, translating the Norman chronicle, says—

Taillefer, who sang both well and loud,

Came mounted on a courser proud,

Before the Duke the minstrel sprung,

And loud of Charles and Roland sung,

Of Oliver and champions mo,

Who died at fatal Roncevaux.

‘Roland’ was a favourite name among the higher nobility for centuries,

and with our ‘Rolands,’ ‘Rowlands,’ ‘Rowlsons,’ and ‘Rowlandsons,’ bids

fair to maintain its hold upon our surnames, if not the baptismal list.

Old forms are found in such entries as ‘Roland le Lene,’ ‘Rouland

Bloet,’ ‘William Rollandson,’ or ‘Robert Rowelyngsonne’! We must not

forget, too, that our ‘Rowletts’ and ‘Rowlets’ represent the French

diminutive.[22] ‘Robert’ is an instance of a name which has held its

place against all counter influences from the moment which first brought

it into public favour. It is early made conspicuous in the eldest son of

the Bastard King who, through his miserable fate, became such an object

of common pity that, though of the hated stock, his sobriquet became

acceptable among the Saxons themselves. From that time its fortunes were

made, even had not the bold archer of Sherwood Forest risen to the fore,

and caused ‘Hob’ to be the title of every other young peasant you might

meet ’twixt London and York. A curious instance of the popularity of the

latter is found in the fact that a tradesman living in 1388 in

Winchelsea is recorded under the name of ‘Thomas Robynhod.’ The

diminutives ‘Robynet’[23] and ‘Robertot’ are obsolete, but of other

forms that still thrive among us are ‘Roberts,’ ‘Robarts,’ ‘Robertson,’

‘Robins,’ ‘Robinson,’ ‘Robison,’ and ‘Robson.’ From its shortened ‘Dob’

are ‘Dobbs,’ ‘Dobson,’ ‘Dobbins,’ ‘Dobinson,’ and ‘Dobison.’[24] From

its equally familiar ‘Hob’ are ‘Hobbs,’ ‘Hobson,’ ‘Hobbins,’ ‘Hopkins,’

and ‘Hopkinson.’ From the Welsh, too, we get, as contractions of

‘Ap-robert’ and ‘Ap-robin,’ ‘Probert’ and ‘Probyn.’ Thus ‘Robert’ is not

left without remembrance. Richard was scarcely less popular than Robert.

Though already firmly established, for Richard was in the Norman ducal

genealogy before William came over the water, still it was reserved for

the Angevine monarch, as he had made it the terror of the Paynim, so to

make it the pride of the English heart. Richard I. is an instance of a

man’s many despicable qualities being forgotten in the dazzling

brilliance of daring deeds. He was an ungrateful son, an unkind brother,

a faithless husband; but he was the idol of his time, and to him a large

mass of English people of to-day owe their _nominal_ existence. From the

name proper we get ‘Richards’ and ‘Richardson,’ ‘Ricks’ and ‘Rix,’

‘Rickson’ and ‘Rixon,’ or ‘Ritson,’ ‘Rickards,’ and ‘Ricketts.’[25] From

the curter ‘Dick’ or ‘Diccon,’[26] we derive ‘Dicks’ or ‘Dix,’ ‘Dickson’

or ‘Dixon,’ ‘Dickens’ or ‘Diccons,’ and ‘Dickenson’ or ‘Dicconson.’ From

‘Hitchin,’ once nearly as familiar as ‘Dick,’ we get ‘Hitchins,’

‘Hitchinson,’ ‘Hitchcock,’ and ‘Hitchcox.’ Like many another name, the

number of ‘Richards’ now is out of all proportion less than these

surnames would ascribe to it some centuries ago. The reason of this we

shall speak more particularly about by-and-by. Roger, well known in

France and Italy, found much favour in England. From it we derive our

‘Rogers,’ ‘Rodgers,’ and ‘Rogersons.’ From Hodge, its nickname, we

acquired ‘Hodge,’ ‘Hodges,’ ‘Hodgkins,’ ‘Hotchkins,’ ‘Hoskins,’

‘Hodgkinson,’ ‘Hodgson,’ and ‘Hodson,’ and through the Welsh ‘Prodger.’

The diminutive ‘Rogercock’ is found once, but it was ungainly, and I

doubt not met with little favour. Reginald, as Rinaldo, immortalized by

the Italian poet, appeared in Domesday as ‘Ragenald’ and ‘Rainald.’ Our

‘Reynolds,’ represent the surname. ‘Renaud’ or ‘Renard,’ can never be

forgotten while there is a single fox left to display its cunning. The

story seems to have been founded on the character of some real

personage, but his iniquities did not frighten parents from the use of

the name. ‘Renaud Balistarius’ or ‘Adam fil. Reinaud’ are common

entries, and ‘Reynardsons’ and ‘Rennisons’ still exist. Our ‘Rankins,’

too, would seem to have originated from this sobriquet since ‘Gilbert

Reynkin’ and ‘Richard Reynkyn’ are found in two separate rolls. Miles

came into England as ‘Milo,’ that being the form found in Domesday. It

was already popular with the Normans, and, like all other personal names

from the same source, we find it speedily recorded in a diminutive

shape, as ‘Millot’ and ‘Millet.’ ‘Roger Millot’ occurs in the Hundred

Rolls, and ‘Thomas Mylett’ in a Yorkshire register of an early date. The

patronymics were ‘Mills,’ ‘Miles,’ ‘Millson,’ and ‘Mileson,’[27] all of

which still exist.

The great race for popularity since Domesday record has ever been that

between ‘William’ and ‘John.’ In the age immediately following the

Conquest ‘William’ decidedly held the supremacy. This is naturally

accounted for by its royal associations. There was, indeed, a ‘John’ in

the same line of descent as the Bastard from Richard I. of Normandy, but

the name seems to have been forgotten, or passed by unheeded, till it

was revived again five generations later in ‘John Lackland.’ ‘William’

enjoyed better auspices. It was the name of the founder of the new

monarchy. It was the name of his immediate successor. Whatever the

character of these two kings, such a conjunction could not but have its

weight upon the especially Norman element in the kingdom. We find in

Domesday that while there are 68 ‘Williams,’ 48 ‘Roberts,’ and 28

‘Walters,’ there are only 10 ‘Johns.’ A century later than this,

‘William’ must still have claimed precedence among the nobility at

least, as is proved by a statement of Robert Montensis. He says, that at

a festival held in the court of Henry II., in 1173, Sir William St. John

and Sir William Fitz-Hamon, especial officers, had commanded that none

but those of the name of ‘William’ should dine in the Great Chamber with

them, and were, therefore, accompanied by one hundred and twenty

‘Williams,’ all knights. By the time of Edward I. this disproportion had

become less marked. In a list of names connected with the county of

Wiltshire in that reign, we find, out of a total of 588 decipherable

names (for the record is somewhat damaged), 92 ‘Williams’ to 88 ‘Johns,’

while ‘Richard’ is credited with 55; ‘Robert,’ 48; ‘Roger,’ 23; and

‘Geoffrey,’ ‘Ralph,’ and ‘Peter,’ each 16 names. This denotes clearly

that a considerable change had taken place in the popular estimation of

these two appellations. Within a century after this, however, ‘John’ had

evidently gained the supremacy. In 1347, we find that out of 133 Common

Councilmen for London town first convened, 35 were ‘Johns,’ the next

highest being 17 under the head of ‘William,’ 15 under ‘Thomas,’ which

now, for obvious reasons we will mention hereafter, had suddenly sprung

into notoriety; 10 under ‘Richard,’ 9 under ‘Henry,’ 8 under ‘Robert,’

and so on; ending with one each for ‘Laurence,’ ‘Reynald,’ ‘Andrew,’

‘Alan,’ ‘Giles,’ ‘Gilbert,’ and ‘Peter.’ A still greater disproportion

is found forty years later; for in 1385, the Guild of St. George, at

Norwich, out of a total of 376 names, possessed 128 ‘Johns’ to 47

‘Williams’ and 41 ‘Thomases.’[28] From this period, despite the hatred

that was felt for Lackland, ‘John’ kept the precedence it had won, and

to this circumstance the nation owes the sobriquet it now generally

receives, that of ‘John Bull.’ Long ago, however, under the offensive

title of ‘Jean Gotdam,’ we had become known as a people given to strange

and unpleasant oaths. It is interesting to trace the way in which

‘William’ has again recovered itself in later days. Throughout the

Middle Ages it occupied a sturdy second place, fearless of any rival

beyond the one that had supplanted it. Its dark hour was the Puritan

Commonwealth. As a Pagan name it was rejected with horror and disdain.

From the day of the Protestant settlement and William’s accession,

however, it again looked up from the cold shade into which it had

fallen, and now once more stands easily, as eight centuries ago, at the

head of our baptismal registers. ‘John,’ on the other hand, though it

had the advantage of being in no way hateful to the Puritan conscience,

has, from one reason or another, gone down in the world, and now has

again resumed its early place as second.

The surnames that have descended to us from ‘William’ and ‘John’ are

well-nigh numberless—far too many for enumeration here. To begin with

the former, however, we find that the simple ‘Williams’ and ‘Williamson’

occupy whole pages of our directories. Besides these, we have from the

curter ‘Will,’ ‘Wills,’ ‘Willis,’ and ‘Wilson;’ from the diminutive

‘Guillemot’ or ‘Gwillot,’ as it is often spelt in olden records.

‘Gillot,’ ‘Gillott,’ and ‘Gillett;’ or from ‘Williamot,’[29] the more

English form of the same, ‘Willmot,’ ‘Wilmot,’ ‘Willot,’ ‘Willet,’ and

‘Willert.’ In conjunction with the pet addenda, we get ‘Wilks,’

‘Wilkins,’ and ‘Wilkinson,’ and ‘Wilcox,’ ‘Wilcocson,’ and ‘Wilcockson.’

Lastly, we have representatives of the more corrupt forms in such names

as ‘Weeks,’ ‘Wickens,’ ‘Wickenson,’ and ‘Bill’ and ‘Bilson.’ Mr. Lower,

who does not quote any authority for the statement, alleges that there

was an old provincial nickname for ‘William’—viz., ‘Till;’ whence

‘Tilson,’ ‘Tillot,’ ‘Tillotson,’ and ‘Tilly.’ That these are sprung from

‘Till’ is evident, but there can be no reasonable doubt that this is but

the still existing curtailment of ‘Matilda,’ which, as the most familiar

female name of that day, would originate many a family so entitled.

‘Tyllott Thompson’ is a name occurring in York in 1414. Thus it is to

the Conqueror’s wife, and not himself, these latter owe their rise. It

is not the first time a wife’s property has thus been rudely wrenched

from her for her husband’s benefit. The surnames from ‘John’ are as

multifarious as is possible in the case of a monosyllable, ingenuity in

the contraction thereof being thus manifestly limited. As ‘John’ simple

it is very rare; but this has been well atoned for by ‘Jones,’ which,

adding ‘John’ again as a prænomen, would be (as has been well said by

the Registrar-General) in Wales a perpetual incognito, and being

proclaimed at the cross of a market town would indicate no one in

particular. Certainly ‘John Jones,’ in the Principality, is but a living

contradiction to the purposes for which names and surnames came into

existence. Besides this, however, we have ‘Johnson’ and ‘Jonson,’

‘Johncock’ and ‘Jenkins,’ ‘Jennings’ and ‘Jenkinson,’ ‘Jackson’ and

‘Jacox,’ and ‘Jenks;’ which latter, however, now bids fair, under the

patronage of ‘Ginx’s Baby,’ to be found for the future in a new and more

quaint dress than it has hitherto worn. Besides several of the above, it

is to the Welsh, also, we owe our ‘Ivens,’ ‘Evans,’ and ‘Bevans’ (_i.e._

Ap-Evan), which are but sprung from the same name. The Flemings, too,

have not suffered their form of it to die out for lack of support; for

it is with the settlement of ‘Hans,’[30] a mere abbreviation of

‘Johannes,’ we are to date the rise of our familiar ‘Hansons,’

‘Hankins,’ ‘Hankinsons,’ and ‘Hancocks,’ or ‘Handcocks.’ Nor is this

all. ‘John’ enjoyed the peculiar prerogative of being able to attach to

itself adjectives of a flattering, or at least harmless nature, and

issuing forth and becoming accepted by the world therewith. Thus—though

we shall have to notice it again—from the praiseworthy effort to

distinguish the many ‘Johns’ each community possessed, we have still in

our midst such names as ‘Prujean’ and ‘Grosjean,’ ‘Micklejohn’ and

‘Littlejohn,’ ‘Properjohn’ and ‘Brownjohn,’ and last, but not least, the

estimable ‘Bonjohn.’ Do we need to go on to prove ‘Jack’s’ popularity,

or rather universality?[31] Every stranger was ‘Jack’ till he was found

to be somebody else; so that ‘every man Jack of them’ has been a kind of

general lay-baptism for ages. Every young supernumerary, whose position

and age gave the licence, was in the eye of his superiors simply ‘Jack.’

As one instrument after another, however, was brought into use, by which

manual service was rendered unnecessary and ‘Jack’ unneeded, instead of

superannuating him he was quietly thrust into the new and inanimate

office, and what with ‘boot-jacks’ and ‘black-jacks,’ ‘jack-towels’ and

‘smoke-jacks,’ ‘jacks’ for this and ‘jacks’ for that, no wonder people

have begun to speak unkindly of him as ‘Jack-of-all-trades and master of

none.’ Still, with this uncomplimentary tone, there was a smack of

praise. A notion, at any rate, got abroad that ‘Jack’ must be a knowing,

clever, sharp-witted sort of fellow, one who has his eyes open. So we

got into the way of associating him with the more lively of the birds,

beasts, and fishes; such, for instance, as the ‘jack-daw,’ the

‘jack-an-apes,’ and the ‘jack-pike.’ But ‘familiarity,’ as our copybooks

long ago informed us, ‘breeds contempt;’ and so was it with ‘Jack’—he

became a mark for ridicule. Even in Chaucer’s day ‘jack-fool’ or

‘jack-pudding’ was the synonym for a buffoon, and ‘jackass’ for a dolt;

and here it but nationalises the ‘zany,’ a corruption of the Italian

‘Giovanni,’ or ‘merry-John,’ corresponding to our ‘merry-Andrew.’ ‘Jack

of Dover’ also existed at the same period as a cant term for a clever

knave, and that it still lived in the seventeenth century is clear from

Taylor’s rhyme, where he says:—

Nor Jacke of Dover, that grand jury Jacke,

Nor Jack-sauce, the worst knave amongst the pack,

But of the Jacke of Jackes, great Jack-a-Lent,

To write his worthy acts is my intent.[32]

Altogether, we may claim for ‘John’ a prominent, if not distinguished,

position in the annals of English nomenclature. Nor must we forget

‘Joan,’ until Tudor days the general form of the present ‘Jane.’ Then

‘some of the better and nicer sort,’ as Camden saith, ‘misliking the

former, turned it into “Jane”;’ and in testimony of this he adds that

‘Jane’ is never found in older records. This is strictly true. There can

be little doubt that when the fair queen of Henry VIII. gave distinction

to the name it became a courtly fashion to give it a different form from

that borne by the multitude, and thus ‘Jane’ arose. Thus ‘Joan’ was

left, as Miss Yonge says, ‘to the cottage and the kitchen;’ and there,

indeed, it lingered on for a long period.[33] Of many another could

Shakespeare have sung:—

Then nightly sings the staring owl,

To-who.

To-whit, to-who, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Previously to this, anyway, both queens and princesses had been content

with ‘Joan.’ I doubt not, with regard to several of the surnames

above-mentioned, ‘John’ must, if the truth be told, share the honours of

origination with ‘Joan;’ nor do I think ‘Jennison’ peculiar to the

latter. What with ‘John’ and ‘Jean’ for the masculine, and ‘Joan’ and

‘Jenny’ for the feminine, I do not see how the two could possibly escape

confusion. ‘Jones’ and ‘Joanes,’ and ‘Jane’ and ‘Jayne,’ to say nothing

of ‘Jennings,’ seem as like hereditary from the one as the other.[34]

Two feminines from ‘Jack,’ viz. ‘Jacquetta’ and ‘Jacqueline,’ were not

unknown in England; ‘Jacquetta Knokyn’ (AA 3), ‘Jackett Toser’ (Z). The

latter was the more common, and bequeathed us a surname ‘Jacklin,’ which

still exists. It is found on an old bell:—

This bell was broke and cast againe, as plainly doth appeare,

John Draper made me in 1618, wich tyme churchwardens were,

Edward Dixson for the one, who stood close to his tacklin,

And he that was his partner there was Alexander Jacklin.

(_Book of Days_, i. 303.)

The peasant’s leather jerkin, corresponding to the more lordly coat of

mail, was a _jack_ whence the diminutive _jacket_. The more warlike

dress gave rise to the name of ‘Jackman,’ of which more anon.

The Angevine dynasty gave a new impulse to some already popular names,

and may be said in reality to have introduced, although not altogether

unknown, several new ones. The two which owe the security of their

establishment to it are ‘Geoffrey’ and ‘Fulke.’ The grandfather, the

father, a brother, and a son of Henry II. were ‘Geoffrey;’ and still

earlier than this, ‘Geoffrey Grisegonelle,’ ‘Geoffrey Martel,’ and

‘Geoffrey Barbu’ had each in turn set their mark upon the same. Apart

from these influences, too, the stories brought home by the Crusaders of

the prowess of Godfrey, the conqueror of Jerusalem, must have had their

wonted effect in a day of such martial renown. Such surnames as ‘Jeffs,’

‘Jeffries,’ ‘Jefferson,’ ‘Jeffcock,’ ‘Jeffkins,’ ‘Jephson,’ and ‘Jepson’

still record the share it had obtained in English esteem. ‘Fulke,’ or

‘Fulque,’ though there had been six so early as Domesday Book, when it

came backed as it was by the fact of having given title to five Angevine

rulers, got an inevitable place. Few Christian names were so common as

this in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But it was an ungainly

one, difficult to pronounce, and difficult to form into a patronymic.

Thus, ‘Faxson’ and ‘Fawson’ are the only longer forms I can find as at

present existing, while the variously spelt ‘Fulkes,’ ‘Foulkes,’

‘Fakes,’ ‘Faux,’ ‘Fawkes,’ ‘Faulks,’ ‘Fowkes,’ ‘Folkes,’ ‘Foakes,’ and

doubtless sometimes ‘Fox,’ serve to show how hard it was to hand it down

in its original integrity. The entries in our mediæval registers are

equally varied. We light upon such people as ‘Fowlke Grevill,’ ‘Fowke

Crompton,’ ‘Fulk Paifrer,’ ‘Fulke le Taverner,’ ‘Foke Odell,’ ‘Faukes le

Buteller,’ ‘Nel Faukes,’ and ‘John Faux.’ As an English historic name it

has given us two miscreants; the hateful favourite of John, outlawed by

Henry III., and the still more sanguinary villain of James I.’s day, in

whose dishonour we still pile up the blazing logs in the gloomy nights

of November. Henry, again, or more properly speaking Harry, owes much to

the Plantagenets, for but three are to be found in Domesday. With its

long line of monarchs, albeit it represented a curious mixture of good,

bad, and indifferent qualities, that dynasty could not but stamp itself

decisively on our registers. Thus, we have still plenty of ‘Henrys,’

‘Harrises,’ ‘Harrisons,’ ‘Hallets,’ ‘Halkets,’ ‘Hawkinses,’ and

‘Hawkinsons;’ to say nothing of the Welsh ‘Parrys’ and ‘Penrys.’[35]

(‘Thomas Ap-Harry,’ D. ‘Hugh Ap-harrye,’ Z.) The Norman diminutive was

early used, as such folk as ‘Alicia Henriot,’ ‘Robert Henriot,’ ‘Heriot

Heringflet,’ ‘Thomas Haryette,’ or ‘William Haryott’ could have borne

witness. ‘Harriot,’ or ‘Harriet,’ has been revived in recent days as a

feminine baptismal name. ‘Hawkin,’ or ‘Halkin,’[36] however, was perhaps

the most popular form. Langland represents Conscience as saying:—

Thi beste cote, Haukyn,

Hath manye moles and spottes,

It moste ben y-wasshe.

Baldwin had already appeared at the Conquest, for an aunt of William’s

had married Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, and he himself was espoused to

Matilda, daughter of the fifth ‘Baldwin’ of that earldom. No doubt the

Flemings brought in fresh accessions, and when we add to this the fact

of its being by no means an unpopular Angevine name, we can readily see

why ‘Balderson,’ ‘Bolderson,’ ‘Balcock,’ ‘Bodkin,’ and the simple

‘Baldwin,’ have maintained a quiet but steady position in the English

lists ever since. Thus, the Plantagenets are not without memorials, even

in the nineteenth century.

III.—_Names from the Calendar of the Saints._

It is to Norman influence we owe the firm establishment of several

names, which had already got securely settled on the Continent on

account of the odour of sanctity that had gathered about them. The

Reformation threw into the shade of oblivion the memories of many holy

men and women who in their day and generation exercised a powerful

influence on our general nomenclature. Many of my readers will be

unaware that there were three St. Geralds and three St. Gerards held in

high repute previous to the eleventh century. The higher Norman families

seem to have been attached to both, though ‘Gerard’ has made the deepest

impression. ‘Gerald’ and ‘Fitz-Gerald’ are the commonest descendants of

the first. As respects ‘Gerard,’ such names as ‘Garret Widdrington,’ or

‘Jarrarde Hall,’ or ‘Jarat Nycholson,’ found among our Yorkshire

entries, serve to show how far the spirit of verbal corruption can

advance; and our many ‘Garrets,’ ‘Jarrets,’ ‘Jarratts,’ and ‘Jerards,’

as surnames, will probably testify the same to all ages.[37] As there

were twenty-eight ‘Walters’ in Domesday Survey, we cannot attribute the

popularity of that name to St. Walter, abbot of Fontenelle in the middle

of the twelfth century. But, as Miss Yonge shows, it had been spread

over Aquitaine in the earlier part of the tenth century, through the

celebrity of a saintly Walter who resided in that dukedom about the year

990. Few sobriquets enjoyed such a share of attention as this. In one of

its nicknames, that of ‘Water,’[38] we are reminded of Suffolk’s death

in Shakespeare’s _Henry VI._, where the murderer says—

My name is Walter Whitmore.

How now! why start’st thou? What, doth death affright!

_Suffolk._ Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.

A cunning man did calculate my birth,

And told me that by _water_ I should die.

University men will remember a play of another kind upon its other form

of ‘Wat,’ in the poems of C. S. C., whose power of rhyming, at least, I

have never seen surpassed, even by Ingoldsby himself. He thus begins one

of his happiest efforts—

Ere the morn the east has crimsoned,

When the stars are twinkling there,

(As they did in Watts’s Hymns, and

Made him wonder what they were.)

This, too, it will be seen, as well as ‘Water,’ still abides with us in

its own or an extended guise, for our ‘Watts’ and ‘Waters,’ ‘Watsons’

and ‘Watersons,’ ‘Watkins’ and ‘Watkinsons,’ would muster strongly if in

conclave assembled. Our ‘Waltrots,’ though not so numerous, are but the

ancient ‘Walterot.’ As a Christian name Walter stands low now-a-days.

‘Tonkin,’ ‘Tonson,’ and ‘Townson’ (found in such an entry as ‘Jane

Tounson’) remind us of ‘Anthony,’[39] a name previous to the Reformation

popular as that possessed by the great ascetic of the fourth century. A

curious phrase got connected with St. Anthony, that of ‘tantony-pig.’ It

is said that monks attached to monasteries dedicated to this saint had

the privilege of allowing their swine to feed in the streets. These

habitually following those who were wont to offer greens to them, gave

rise to the expression, ‘To follow like a Tantony-pig.’ Thus, in ‘The

good wyfe wold a pylgremage,’ it is said—

When I am out of the towne,

Look that thou be wyse,

And run thou not from hous to hous,

Like a nantyny grice.

The connection between St. Anthony and swine, which gave the good monks

this benefit, seems, in spite of many wild guesses, to have arisen from

the mere fact of his dwelling so long in the woodlands. As Barnabe Googe

has it—

The bristled hogges doth Antonie

Preserve and cherish well,

Who in his lifetime always did

In woodes and forestes dwell.[40]

It must have been this connexion which made ‘Tony’ the common sobriquet

for a simpleton or a country clown. It lived in this sense till Dryden’s

day, and certainly had become such so early as the thirteenth century,

if we may judge by the occurrence of such names as ‘Ida le Tony,’ or

‘Roger le Tony,’ found in the Rolls of that period.[41] If, however, St.

Anthony was thus doomed to be an example, how great may be the drawbacks

to saintly distinction: ‘St. Cuthbert,’ who, in the odour of sanctity,

dwelt at Lindisfarne, may even be more pitied, for, owing to the

familiarity of his name in every rustic household of Northumbria and

Durham, he became as ‘Cuddie,’ a sobriquet for the donkey, and is thus

known and associated to the present moment. Our ‘Cuthberts,’

‘Cuthbertsons,’ and ‘Cutbeards,’ however, need trouble themselves

little, I imagine, on the question of their connection with the animal

to whom we usually ascribe the honours in regard to obstinacy and

stubbornness. Our ‘Cuddies,’ perhaps, are not quite so free from

suspicion. Our ‘Cobbets’ undoubtedly spring from ‘Cuthbert.’ A ‘Nicholas

Cowbeytson’ occurs in a Yorkshire register of the fourteenth century

(Fabric Rolls of York Minster: Sur. Soc.). From ‘Cowbeyt’ to ‘Cobbet’ is

a natural—I might say an inevitable—change. This name, however, owes

nothing to the Normans. Not so ‘Giles.’ Everyone knows the story of St.

Giles, how he dwelt as an anchorite in the forest near Nismes, and was

discovered by the King because the hind, which daily gave him milk,

pushed in the chase, fled to his feet. The name is entered in our rolls

alike as ‘Giles,’ ‘Gile,’ and ‘Egedius’ (Gile Deacon. A. Jordan fil.

Egidius, A). St. Lawrence, put on a gridiron over a slow fire in the

third century, made his name popular in Spain. An archbishop of

Canterbury, raised to a saintship in the seventh century, made the same

familiar in England. Besides ‘Lawson,’ we have ‘Larkins’ and ‘Larson.’

In the lines already quoted relative to Wat Tyler’s insurrection, it is

said—

_Larkin_ et in medio, non minor esse putat.

The French diminutive occurs also. An ‘Andrew Larrett’ is mentioned by

Nicholls in his history of Leicestershire, and the surname may still be

seen in our directories. ‘Lambert’ received a large accession in England

through the Flemings, who thus preserved a memorial of the patron of

Liege, St. Lambert, who was martyred early in the eighth century.

Succumbing to the fashion so prevalent among the Flemings, it is

generally found as ‘Lambkin,’ such entries as ‘Lambekyn fil. Eli’ or

‘Lambekin Taborer’ being common. The present surnominal forms are

‘Lambert,’ ‘Lampson,’[42] ‘Lambkin,’ and ‘Lampkin.’ Thus our ‘Lambkins’

cannot boast of the Moses-like disposition of their ancestor on

philological grounds. With the mention of three other saints we conclude

this list. The legend of St. Christopher had its due effect on the

popular taste, and it is early found in the various guises of

‘Cristophre,’ ‘Cristofer,’ and ‘Christofer.’ ‘Christophers’ and

‘Christopherson’ represent the surnames of the fuller form. To the pet

form we owe our ‘Kitts’ and ‘Kitsons.’ St. Christopher’s Isle in the

West Indies is now familiarly St. Kitts. It was of the indignity offered

to Christopher Marlowe’s genius in calling him so generally by this

brief sobriquet that Heywood spoke when he said—

Marlowe, renowned for his rare art and wit,

Could ne’er attain beyond the name of Kit.[43]

The same writer has it also in one of his epigrams—

Nothing is lighter than a feather, Kytte,

Yes, Climme: what light thing is that? thy light wytte.

We have already mentioned one abbot of Fontenelle who influenced our

nomenclature. Another who exerted a similar power was ‘St. Gilbert,’ a

contemporary and friend of the Conqueror. A few generations afterwards

brought the English St. Gilbert to the fore, and then the name began to

grow common, so common that as ‘Gib’ it became the favourite sobriquet

of the feline species.[44] In several of our earliest writers it is

found in familiar use, and in the Bard of Avon’s day it was not

forgotten. Falstaff complains of being as melancholy as a ‘gib-cat’—that

is, an old worn-out cat. Hamlet also says—