Read Ebook: The Romance of Names by Weekley Ernest

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nding to our Cliff, Cleeve, etc; Pochin, explained as the diminutive of some personal name, is the Norman form of the famous name Poussin, i.e. Chick. Or, coming to native instances, le wenchel, a medieval prototype of Winkle, is explained as for "periwinkle," whereas it is a common Middle-English word, existing now in the shortened form wench, and means Child. The obsolete Swordslipper, now only Slipper, which he interprets as a maker of "sword-slips," or sheaths, was really a sword-sharpener, from Mid. Eng. slipen, cognate with Old Du. slijpen, to polish, sharpen, and Ger. schleifen. Sometimes a very simple problem is left unexplained, e.g. in the case of the name Tyas, where the medieval instances of le tyeis are to a student of Old French clearly le tieis or tiois, i.e. the German, cognate with Ger. deutsch and Ital. tedesco.

These examples are quoted, not in depreciation of conscientious student to whose work my own compilation is greatly indebted, but merely to show that the etymological study of surnames has scarcely been touched at present, except by writers to whom philology is an unknown science. I have inserted, as a specimen problem , a little disquisition on the name Rutter, a cursory perusal of which will convince most readers that it is not much use making shots in this subject.

My aim has been to steer a clear course between a too learned and a too superficial treatment, and rather to show how surnames are formed than to adduce innumerable examples which the reader should be able to solve for himself. I have made no attempt to collect curious names, but have taken those which occur in the London Directory or have caught my eye in the newspaper or the streets. To go into proofs would have swelled the book beyond all reasonable proportions, but the reader may assume that, in the case of any derivation not expressly stated as a conjecture, the connecting links exist. In the various classes of names, I have intentionally omitted all that is obvious, except in the rather frequent case of the obvious being wrong. The index, which I have tried to make complete, is intended to replace to some extent those cross-references which are useful to students but irritating to the general reader. Hundreds of names are susceptible of two, three, or more explanations, and I do not profess to be exhaustive.

ERNEST WEEKLEY.

Nottingham, September 1913

The following dictionaries are quoted without further reference:

Promptorium Parvulorum , ed. Mayhew .

PALSGRAVE, L'Esclarcissement de la langue francoyse , ed. G?nin .

COOPER, Thesaurus Lingua Romanae et Britannicae .

COTGRAVE A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues

The Middle English quotations, except where otherwise stated, are from Chaucer, the references being to the Globe edition.

"The French and we termed them Surnames, not because they are the names of the Sire, or the father, but because they are super-added to Christian names."

The study of the origin of family names is at the same time quite simple and very difficult. Its simplicity consists in the fact that surnames can only come into existence in certain well-understood ways. Its difficulty is due to the extraordinary perversions which names undergo in common speech, to the orthographic uncertainty of our ancestors, to the frequent coalescence of two or more names of quite different Origin, and to the multitudinous forms which one single name can assume, such forms being due to local pronunciation, accidents of spelling, date of adoption, and many minor causes. It must always remembered that the majority of our surnames from the various dialects of Middle English, i.e. of a language very different from our own in spelling and sound, full of words that are now obsolete, and of others which have completely changed their form and meaning.

If we take any medieval roll of names, we see almost at a glance that four such individuals as--

John filius Simon

William de la Moor

Richard le Spicer

Robert le Long

exhaust the possibilities of English name-making--i.e. that every surname must be personal, from a sire or ancestor, local, from place of residence, occupative, from trade or office, a nickname, from bodily attributes, character, etc.

This can easily be illustrated from any list of names taken at random. The Rugby team chosen to represent the East Midlands against Kent consisted of the following fifteen names: Hancock; Mobbs, Poulton, Hudson, Cook; Watson, Earl; Bull, Muddiman, Collins, Tebbitt, Lacey, Hall, Osborne, Manton. Some of these are simple, but others require a little knowledge for their explanation.

PERSONAL NAMES

There are seven personal names, and the first of these, Hancock, is rather a problem. This is usually explained as from Flemish Hanke, Johnny, while the origin of the suffix -cock has never been very clearly accounted for . With Hancock we may compare Hankin. But, while the Flemish derivation is possible for these two names, it will not explain Hanson, which sometimes becomes Hansom . According to Camden, there is evidence that Han was also used as a rimed form of Ran, short for Ranolf and Randolf , very popular names in the north during the surname period. In Hankin and Hancock this Han would naturally coalesce with the Flemish Hanke. This would also explain the names Hand for Rand, and Hands, Hance for Rands, Rance. Mobbs is the same as Mabbs , and Mabbs is the genitive of Mab, i.e. Mabel, for Amabel. We have the diminutive in Mappin and the patronymic in Mapleson. Hudson is the son of Hud, a very common medieval name, which seems to represent Anglo-Saxon Hudda , the vigorous survival of which into the surname period is a mystery. Watson is the son of Wat, i.e. Walter, from the Old N.E. Fr. Vautier , regularly pronounced and written Water at one time--

". . . 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."

Hence the name Waters, which has not usually any connection with water; while Waterman, though sometimes occupative, is also formed from Walter, like Hickman from Hick . Collins is from Colin, a French diminutive of Col, i.e. Nicol or Nicolas.

Tebbitt is a diminutive of Theobald, a favourite medieval name which had the shortened forms Teb, Tib, Tub, whence a number of derivatives. But names in Teb- and Tib- may also come from Isabel . Osborne is the Anglo-Saxon name Osbeorn.

Of course, each of these personal names has a meaning, e.g. Amabel, ultimately Latin, means lovable, and Walter, a Germanic name, means "rule army" , but the discussion of such meanings lies outside our subject. It is, in fact, sometimes difficult to distinguish between the personal name and the nickname. Thus Pagan, whence Payn, with its diminutives Pannell, Pennell, etc., Gold, Good, German, whence Jermyn, Jarman, and many other apparent nicknames, occur as personal names in the earliest records. Their etymological origin is in any case the same as if they were nicknames.

To return to our football team, Poulton, Lacey, Hall, and Manton are local. There are several villages in Cheshire and Lancashire named Poulton, i.e. the town or homestead by the pool. Lacey occurs in Domesday Book as de Laci, from some small spot in Normandy, probably the hamlet of Lassy . Hall is due to residence near the great house of the neighbourhood. If Hall's ancestor's name had chanced to be put down in Anglo-French as de la sale, he might now be known as Sale, or even as Saul. Manton is the name of places in Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, so that this player, at any rate, has an ancestral qualification for the East Midlands.

The only true occupative name in the list is Cook, for Earl is a nickname. Cook was perhaps the last occupative title to hold its own against the inherited name. Justice Shallow, welcoming Sir John Falstaff, says--

"Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws. Tell William Cook" .

And students of the Ingoldsby Legends will remember that

"Ellen Bean ruled his cuisine.--He called her Nelly Cook."

There are probably a goodly number of housewives of the present day who would be at a loss if suddenly asked for "cook's" name in full. It may be noted that Lequeux means exactly the same, and is of identical origin, archaic Fr. le queux, Lat. coquus, while Kew is sometimes for Anglo-Fr. le keu, where keu is the accusative of queux .

NICKNAMES

The nicknames are Earl, Bull, and Muddiman. Nicknames such as Earl may have been acquired in various ways . Bull and Muddiman are singularly appropriate for Rugby scrummagers, though the first may be from an inn or shop sign, rather than from physique or character. It is equivalent to Thoreau, Old Fr. toreau . Muddiman is for Moodyman, where moody has its older meaning of valiant; cf. its German cognate mutig. The weather on the day in question gave a certain fitness both to the original meaning and the later form.

MYTHICAL ETYMOLOGIES

It may be stated here, once for all, that etymologies of names which are based on medieval latinizations, family mottoes, etc., are always to be regarded with suspicion, as they involve the reversing of chronology, or the explanation of a name by a pun which has been made from it. We find Lilburne latinized as de insula tontis, as though it were the impossible hybrid de l'isle burn, and Beautoy sometimes as de bella fide, whereas foy is the Old French for beech, from Lat. fagus. Napier of Merchiston had the motto n'a pier, "has no equal," and described himself on title-pages as the Nonpareil, but his ancestor was a servant who looked after the napery. With Holyoak's rendering of his own name we may compare Parkinson's "latinization" of his name in his famous book on gardening, which bears the title Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris, i.e. the Earthly Paradise of "Park in Sun."

Many noble names have an anecdotic "explanation." I learnt at school that Percy came from "pierce-eye," in allusion to a treacherous exploit at Alnwick. The Lesleys claim descent from a hero who overthrew a Hungarian champion

"Between the less lee and the Mair He slew the knight and left him there."

Similarly, the great name of Courtenay, Courtney, of French local origin, is derived in an Old French epic from court nez, short nose, an epithet conferred on the famous Guillaume d'Orange, who, when the sword of a Saracen giant removed this important feature, exclaimed undauntedly--

"Mais que mon n?s ai un poi acorci?, Bien sai mes nons en sera alongi?."

I read lately in some newspaper that the original Lockhart took the "heart" of the Bruce to the Holy Land in a "locked" casket. Practically every famous Scottish name has a yarn connected with it, the gem perhaps being that which accounts for Guthrie. A Scottish king, it is said, landed weary and hungry as the sole survivor of a shipwreck. He approached a woman who was gutting fish, and asked her to prepare one for him. The kindly fishwife at once replied, "I'll gut three." Whereupon the king, dropping into rime with a readiness worthy of Mr. Wegg, said--

"Then gut three, Your name shall be,"

and conferred a suitable estate on his benefactress.

After all, truth is stranger than fiction. There is quite enough legitimate cause for wonderment in the fact that Tyas is letter for letter the same name as Douch, or that Strangeways, from a district in Manchester which, lying between the Irwell and the Irk, formerly subject to floods, is etymologically strong-wash. The Joannes Acutus whose tomb stands in Florence is the great free-lance captain Sir John Hawkwood, "omitting the h in Latin as frivolous, and the k and w as unusual" , which makes him almost as unrecognizable as that Peter Gower, the supposed founder of freemasonry, who turned out to be Pythagoras.

ALTERNATIVE ORIGINS

Many names are susceptible of two, three, or more explanations. This is especially true of some of our commonest monosyllabic surnames. Bell may be from Anglo-Fr. le bel , or from a shop sign, or from residence near the church or town bell. It may even have been applied to the man who pulled the bell. Finally, the ancestor may have been a lady called Isabel, a supposition which does not necessarily imply illegitimacy . Ball is sometimes the shortened form of the once favourite Baldwin. It is also from a shop sign, and perhaps most frequently of all is for bald. The latter word is properly balled, i.e., marked with a ball, or white streak, a word of Celtic origin; cf. "piebald," i.e., balled like a pie, and the "bald-faced stag." From the same word we get the augmentative Ballard, used, according to Wyclif, by the little boys who unwisely called to an irritable prophet--

"Stey up ballard" .

The name may also be personal, Anglo-Sax. Beal-heard. Rowe may be local, from residence in a row , or it may be an accidental spelling of the nickname Roe, which also survives in the Mid. English form Ray .

But Row was also the shortened form of Rowland, or Roland. Cobb is an Anglo-Saxon name, as in the local Cobham, but it is also from the first syllable of Cobbold and the second of Jacob. From Jacob come the diminutives Cobbin and Coppin.

Or, to take some less common names, House not only represents the medieval de la house, but also stands for Howes, which, in its turn, may be the plural of how, a hill , or the genitive of How, one of the numerous medieval forms of Hugh . Hind may be for Hine, a farm servant , or for Mid. Eng. hende, courteous , and is perhaps sometimes also an animal nickname . Rouse is generally Fr. roux, i.e. the red, but it may also be the nominative form of Rou, i.e. of Rolf, or Rollo, the sea-king who conquered Normandy. Was Holman the holy man, the man who lived near a holm, i.e. holly , on a holm, or river island , or in a hole, or hollow? All these origins have equal claims.

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