The Romance of Names Part 10

Janico or Jenico, Fr. Janicot may be the origin of Jellicoe.

We also get the change of r to l in Hal, for Harry, whence Hallett, Hawkins (Halkins), and the Cornish Hockin, Mal or Mol for Mary, whence Malleson, Mollison, etc., and Pell for Peregrine. This confusion is common in infantile speech, e.g. I have heard a small child express great satisfaction at the presence on the table of "blackbelly dam."

METATHESIS

Metathesis, or the transposition of sound, chiefly affects l and r, especially the latter. Our word cress is from Mid. Eng. kers, which appears in Karslake, Toulmin is for Tomlin, a double dim., -el-in, of Tom, Grundy is for Gundry, from Anglo-Sax. Gundred, and Joe Gargery descended from a Gregory. Burnell is for Brunel, dim. of Fr. brun, brown, and Thrupp is for Thorp, a village (Chapter XIII). Strickland was formerly Stirkland, Cripps is the same as Crisp, from Mid. Eng.

crisp, curly. Prentis Jankin had--

"Crispe here, shynynge as gold so fyn"

(D. 304);

and of Fame we are told that

"Her heer was oundie (wavy) and crips."

(House of Fame, iii. 296.)

Both names may also be short for Crispin, the etymology being the same in any case. Apps is sometimes for asp, the tree now called by the adjectival name aspen (cf. linden). We find Thomas atte apse in the reign of Edward III.

The letters l, n, r also tend to disappear from no other cause than rapid or careless p.r.o.nunciation.

Hence we get Home for Holme (Chapter XII), Ferris for Ferrers, a French local name, Batt for Bartholomew, Gatty for Gertrude, Dallison for d'Alencon. The loss of _r_ after a vowel is also exemplified by Foster for Forster, Pannell and Pennell for Parnell (sometimes), Gath for Garth (Chapter XIII), and Mash for Marsh. To the loss of n before s we owe such names as Pattison, Paterson, etc., son of Paton, the dim. of Patrick, and Robison for Robinson, and also a whole group of names like Jenks and Jinks for Jenkins (John), Wilkes for Wilkins, Gilkes, Danks, Perks, Hawkes, Jukes for Judkins (Chapter VI), etc.

Here I should also include Biggs, which is not always connected with Bigg, for we seldom find adjectival nicknames with -s. It seems to represent Biggins, from obsolete biggin, a building (Chapter XIII).

The French nasal n often disappeared before r. Thus denree, lit. a pennyworth, appears in Anglo-French as darree. Similarly Henry became Harry, except in Scotland, and the English Kings of that name were always called Harry by their subjects. It is to this p.r.o.nunciation that we owe the popularity of Harris and Harrison, and the frequency of Welsh Parry, ap, Harry, as compared with Penry. A compromise between Henry and Harry is seen in Hanrott, from the French dim.

Henriot.

The initial h-, which we regard with such veneration, is treated quite arbitrarily in surnames. We find a well-known medieval poet called indifferently Occleve and Hoccleve. Harnett is the same as Arnett, for Arnold, Ewens and Heavens are both from Ewan, and Heaven is an imitative form of Evan. In Hoskins, from the medieval Osekin, a dim.

of some Anglo-Saxon name such as Oswald (Chapter VII), the aspirate has definitely prevailed. The Devonshire name Hexter is for Exeter, Arbuckle is a corruption of Harbottle, in Northumberland. The Old French name Ancel appears as both Ansell and Hansell, and Earnshaw exists side by side with Hearnshaw (Chapter XII).

The loss of h is especially common when it is the initial letter of a suffix, e.g. Barnum for Barnham, Haslam, (hazel), Blenkinsop for Blenkin's hope (see hope, Chapter XII), Newall for Newhall, Windle for Wind Hill, Tickell for Tick Hill, in Yorkshire, etc. But Barnum and Haslam may also represent the Anglo-Saxon dative plural of the words barn and hazel. A man who minded sheep was once called a Shepard, or Sheppard, as he still is, though we spell it shepherd. The letter w disappears in the same way; thus Greenish is for Greenwich, Horridge for Horwich, Aspinall for Aspinwall, Millard for Millward, the mill-keeper, Boxall for Boxwell, Caudle for Cauldwell (cold); and the Anglo-Saxon names in -win are often confused with those in -ing, e.g.

Gooding, Goodwin; Golding, Goldwin; Gunning, Gunwin, etc. In this way Harding has prevailed over the once equally common Hardwin.

BABY PHONETICS

Finally, we have to consider what may be called baby phonetics, the sound-changes which seem rather to transgress general phonetic laws.

Young children habitually confuse dentals and palatals, thus a child may be heard to say that he has "dot a told." This tendency is, however, not confined to children. My own name, which is a very uncommon one, is a stumbling-block to most people, and when I give it in a shop the scribe has generally got as far as Wheat- before he can be stopped.

We find both Estill and Askell for the medieval Asketil, and Thurtle alternating with Thurkle, originally Thurketil (Chapter VII).

Bertenshave is found for Birkenshaw, birch wood, Bartley, sometimes from Bartholomew, is more often for Berkeley, and both Lord Bacon and Horace Walpole wrote Twitnam for Twickenham. Jeffc.o.c.k, dim. of Geoffrey, becomes Jeffcott, while Glasc.o.c.k is for the local Glascott.

Here the palatal takes the place of the dental, as in Brangwin for Anglo-Sax. Brandwine. Middleman is a dialect form of Michaelmas (Chapter IX). We have the same change in tiddlebat for stickleback, a word which exemplifies another point in baby phonetics, viz. the loss of initial s-, as in the cla.s.sic instance tummy. To this loss of s- we owe Pick for Spick (Chapter XXIII), Pink for Spink, a dialect word for the chaffinch, and, I think, Tout for Stout. The name Stacey is found as Tacey in old Notts registers. On the other hand, an inorganic s- is sometimes prefixed, as in Sturgess for the older Turgis. For the loss of s- we may compare Shakespeare's parmaceti (1 Henry IV. i. 3), and for its addition the adjective spruce, from Pruce, i.e. Prussia.

We also find the infantile confusion between th and f e.g. in Selfe, which appears to represent a personal name Seleth, probably from Anglo-Sax, saelth, bliss. Perhaps also in Fripp for Thripp, a variant of Thrupp, for Thorp. Bickerstaffe is the name of a place in Lancashire, of which the older form appears in Bickersteth, and the local name Throgmorton is spelt by Camden Frogmorton, just as Pepys invariably writes Queenhive for Queenhythe.

Such are some of the commoner phenomena to be noticed in connection with the spelling and sound of our names. The student must always bear in mind that our surnames date from a period when nearly the whole population was uneducated. Their modern forms depend on all sorts of circ.u.mstances, such as local dialect, time of adoption, successive fashions in p.r.o.nunciation and the taste and fancy of the speller. They form part of our language, that is, of a living and ever-changing organism. Some of us are old enough to remember the confusion between initial v and w which prompted the judge's question to Mr. Weller. The vulgar i for a, as in "tike the kike," has been evolved within comparatively recent times, as well as the loss of final -g, "shootin and huntin," in sporting circles. In the word warmint--

"What were you brought up to be?"

"A warmint, dear boy"

(Great Expectations, ch. xl.),

we have three phonetic phenomena, all of which have influenced the form and sound of modern surnames, e.g. in Winter, sometimes for Vinter, i.e. vintner, Clark for Clerk, and Bryant for Bryan; and similar changes have been in progress all through the history of our language.

In conclusion it may be remarked that the personal and accidental element, which has so much to do with the development of surnames, releases this branch of philology to some extent from the iron rule of the phonetician. Of this the preceding pages give examples. The name, not being subject as other words are to a normalizing influence, is easily affected by the traditional or accidental spelling.

Otherwise Fry would be p.r.o.nounced Free. The o is short in Robin and long in Probyn, and yet the names are the same (Chapter VI). Sloper and Smoker mean a maker of slops and smocks respectively, and Smale is an archaic spelling of Small, the modern vowel being in each case lengthened by the retention of an archaic spelling. The late Professor Skeat rejects Bardsley's identification of Waring with Old Fr. Garin or Warin, because the original vowel and the suffix are both different. But Mainwaring, which is undoubtedly from mesnil-Warin (Chapter XIV), shows Bardsley to be right.

CHAPTER IV. BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON

"Talbots and Stanleys, St. Maurs and such-like folk, have led armies and made laws time out of mind; but those n.o.ble families would be somewhat astonished-if the accounts ever came to be fairly taken-to find how small their work for England has been by the side of that of the Browns." (Tom Brown's Schooldays, ch. i.)

Brown, Jones, and Robinson have usurped in popular speech positions properly belonging to Smith, Jones and Williams. But the high position of Jones and Williams is due to the Welsh, who, replacing a string of Aps by a simple genitive at a comparatively recent date, have given undue prominence to a few very common names; cf. Davies, Evans, etc. If we consider only purely English names, the triumvirate would be Smith, Taylor, and Brown. Thus, of our three commonest names, the first two are occupative and the third is a nickname.

French has no regular equivalent, though Dupont and Durand are sometimes used in this way--

"Si Chateaubriand avait eu nom Durand ou Dupont, qui sait si son Genie du Christianisme n'eut point pa.s.se pour une capucinade?"

(F. Brunetiere.)

The Germans speak of Muller, Meyer and Schulze, all rural names, and it is perhaps characteristic that two of them are official. Meyer is an early loan from Lat. major, and appears to have originally meant something like overseer. Later on it acquired the meaning of farmer, in its proper sense of one who farms, i.e. manages on a profit-sharing system, the property of another. It is etymologically the same as our Mayor, Mair, etc. Schulze, a village magistrate, is cognate with Ger.

Schuld, debt, and our verb shall.

OCCUPATIVE NAMES

Taking the different cla.s.ses of surnames separately, the six commonest occupative names are Smith, Taylor, Clark, Wright, Walker, Turner. If we exclude Clark, as being more often a nickname for the man who could read and write, the sixth will be Cooper, sometimes spelt Cowper.

The commanding position of Smith is due to the fact that it was applied to all workers in every kind of metal. The modern Smiths no doubt include descendants of medieval blacksmiths, whitesmiths, bladesmiths, locksmiths, and many others, but the compounds are not common as surnames. We find, however, Shoosmith, Shearsmith, and Nasmyth, the last being more probably for earlier Knysmith, i.e.

knife-smith, than for nail-smith, which was supplanted by Naylor.

Grossmith I guess to be an accommodated form of the Ger. Grobschmied, blacksmith, lit. rough smith, and Goldsmith is very often a Jewish name for Ger. Goldschmid.

Wright, obsolete perhaps as a trade name, has given many compounds, including Arkwright, a maker of bins, or arks as they were once called, Tellwright, a tile maker, and many others which need no interpretation. The high position of Taylor is curious, for there were other names for the trade, such as Seamen, Shapster, Parmenter (Chapter XVIII), and neither Tailleur nor Letailleur are particularly common in French. The explanation is that this name has absorbed the medieval Teler and Teller, weaver, ultimately belonging to Lat. tela, a web;--cf. the very common Fr. Tellier and Letellier. In some cases also the Mid. Eng. teygheler, Tyler, has been swallowed up. Walker, i.e. trampler, meant a cloth fuller, but another origin has helped to swell the numbers of the clan--

"Walkers are such as are otherwise called foresters. They are foresters a.s.signed by the King, who are walkers within a certain s.p.a.ce of ground a.s.signed to their care" (Cowel's Interpreter).

Cooper, a derivative of Lat. cupa or cuppa, a vessel, is cognate with the famous French name Cuvier, which has given our Cover, though this may also be for coverer, i.e. tiler (Chapter XV).

Of occupative names which have also an official meaning, the three commonest are Ward, Bailey, and Marshall. Ward, originally abstract, is the same word as Fr. garde. Bailey, Old Fr. bailif (bailli), ranges from a Scottish magistrate to a man in possession. It is related to bail and to bailey, a ward in a fortress, as in Old Bailey.

Bayliss may come from the Old French nominative bailis (Chapter I), or may be formed like Parsons, etc. (Chapter XV). Marshall (Chapter XX) may stand for a great commander or a shoeing-smith, still called farrier-marshal in the army. The first syllable is cognate with mare and the second means servant. Constable, Lat. comes stabuli, stableman, has a similar history.