The Romance of Names Part 22

SOCIAL GRADES

By dealing with a few essential points at the outset we shall clear the ground for considering the various groups of surnames connected with trade, craft, profession or office. To begin with, it is certain that such names as Pope, Cayzer, King, Earl, Bishop are nicknames, very often conferred on performers in religious plays or acquired in connection with popular festivals and processions--

"Names also have been taken of civil honours, dignities and estate, as King, Duke, Prince, Lord, Baron, Knight, Valvasor or Vavasor, Squire, Castellon, partly for that their ancestours were such, served such, acted such parts; or were Kings of the Bean, Christmas-Lords, etc."

(Camden).

We find corresponding names in other languages, and some of the French names, usually preceded by the definite article, have pa.s.sed into English, e.g. Lempriere, a Huguenot name, and Leveque, whence our Levick, Vick, Veck (Chapter III). Baron generally appears as Barron, and Duke, used in Mid. English of any leader, is often degraded to Duck, whence the dim. Duckett. But all three of these names can also be referred to Marmaduke.

It would be tempting to put Palsgrave in this cla.s.s. Prince Rupert, the Pfalzgraf, i.e. Count Palatine, was known as the Palsgrave in his day, but I have not found the t.i.tle recorded early enough.

With Lord we must put the northern Laird, and, in my opinion, Senior; for, if we notice how much commoner Young is than Old, and Fr. Lejeune than Levieux, we must conclude that junior, a very rare surname, ought to be of much more frequent occurrence than Senior, Synyer, a fairly common name. There can be little doubt that Senior is usually a latinization of the medieval le seigneur, whence also Saynor. Knight is not always knightly, for Anglo-Sax. cniht means servant; cf. Ger.

Knecht. The word got on in the world, with the consequence that the name is very popular, while its medieval compeers, knave, varlet, villain, have, even when adorned with the adj. good, dropped out of the surname list, Bonvalet, Bonvarlet, Bonvillain are still common surnames in France. From Knight we have the compound Road-night, a mounted servitor. Thus Knight is more often a true occupative name, and the same applies to Dring or Dreng, a Scandinavian name of similar meaning.

Other names from the middle rungs of the social ladder are also to be taken literally, e.g. Franklin, a freeholder, Anglo-Fr. frankelein--

"How called you your franklin, Prior Aylmer?"

"Cedric," answered the Prior, "Cedric the Saxon"

(Ivanhoe, ch. i.)--

Burgess, Freeman, Freeborn. The latter is sometimes for Freebairn and exists already as the Anglo-Saxon personal name Freobeorn. Denison (Chapter II) is occasionally an accommodated form of denizen, Anglo-Fr. deinzein, a burgess enjoying the privileges belonging to those who lived "deinz (in) la cite." In 1483 a certain Edward Jhonson--

"Sued to be mayde Denison for fer of ye payment of ye subsedy."

(Letter to Sir William Stonor, June 9, 1483.)

Bond is from Anglo-Sax, bonda, which means simply agriculturist. The word is of Icelandic origin and related to Boor, another word which has deteriorated and is rare as a surname, though the cognate Bauer is common enough in Germany. Holder is translated by Tennant. For some other names applied to the humbler peasantry see Chapter XIII.

To return to the social summit, we have Kingson, often confused with the local Kingston, and its Anglo-French equivalent Fauntleroy.

Faunt, aphetic for Anglo-Fr. enfaunt, is common in Mid. English. When the mother of Moses had made the ark of bulrushes, or, as Wyclif calls it, the "junket of resshen," she--

"Putte the litil faunt with ynne"

(Exodus ii. 3)

The Old French accusative (Chapter I) was also used as a genitive, as in Bourg-le-roi, Bourg-la-rein, corresponding to our Kingsbury and Queensborough. We have a genitive also in Flowerdew, found in French as Flourdieu. Lower, in his Patronymics Britannica (1860), the first attempt at a dictionary of English surnames, conjectures Fauntleroy to be from an ancient French war-cry Defendez le roi! for "in course of time, the meaning of the name being forgotten, the de would be dropped, and the remaining syllables would easily glide into Fauntleroy." [Footnote: I have quoted this "etymology" because it is too funny to be lost; but a good deal of useful information can be found in Lower, especially with regard to the habitat of well-known names.]

ECCLESIASTICAL NAMES

Names of ecclesiastics must usually be nicknames, because medieval churchmen were not ent.i.tled to have descendants. This appears clearly in such an entry as "Bishop the crossbowman," or "Johannes Monacus et uxor ejus Emma," living in Kent in the twelfth century. But these names are so numerous that I have put them with the Canterbury Pilgrims (ch. xvii.). Three of them may be mentioned here in connection with a small group of occupative surnames of puzzling form.

We have noticed (Chapter XII) that monosyllabic, and some other, surnames of local origin frequently take an -s, partly by a.n.a.logy with names like Wills, Watts, etc. We rarely find this -s in the case of occupative names, but Parsons, Vicars or Vickers, and Monks are common, and in fact the first two are scarcely found without the -s.

To these we may add Reeves (Chapter XVII), Grieves (Chapter XIX), and the well-known Nottingham name Mellers (Chapter XVII). The explanation seems to be that these names are true genitives, and that John Parsons was John the Parson's man, while John Monks was employed by the monastery. This is confirmed by such entries as "Walter atte Parsons," "John del Parsons," "Allen atte Prestes," "William del Freres," "Thomas de la Vicars," all from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Another exceptional group is that of names formed by adding -son to the occupative names, the commonest being perhaps Clarkson, Cookson, Smithson, and Wrightson. To this cla.s.s belongs Grayson, which Bardsley shows to be equivalent to the grieve's son.

Our occupative names are both English and French, [Footnote: We have also a few Latinizations, e.g. Faber (wright), Messer (mower). This type of name is much commoner in Germany, e.g. Avenarius, oat man, Fabricius, smith, Textor, weaver, etc. Mercator, of map projection fame, was a Fleming named Kremer, i.e. dealer.] the two languages being represented by those important tradesmen Baker and Butcher. The former is reinforced by Bollinger, Fr. boulanger, Pester, Old Fr.

pestour (Lat. piston), and Furner--

"Fournier, a baker, or one that keeps, or governs a common oven"

(Cotgrave).

The English and French names for the same trade also survive in Cheeseman and Firminger, Old Fr. formagier (fromage).

We have as endings -er, -ier, the latter often made into -yer, -ger, as in Lockyer, Sawyer, Kidger (Chapter XIX), Woodger, [Footnote: Woodyer, Woodger, may also be for wood-hewer. See Stanier] and -or, -our, as in Taylor, Jenoure (Chapter III). The latter ending, corresponding to Modern Fr. -eur, represents Lat. -or, -orem, but we tack it onto English words as in "sailor," or subst.i.tute it for -er, -ier, as in Fermor, for Farmer, Fr. fermier. In the Privy Purse Expenses of that careful monarch Henry VII. occurs the item--

"To bere drunken at a fermors house . . . 1s."

In the same way we replace the Fr. -our, -eur by -er, as in Turner, Fr. tourneur, Ginner, Jenner for Jenoure.

The ending -er, -ier represents the Lat. -arius. It pa.s.sed not only into French, but also into the Germanic languages, replacing the Teutonic agential suffix which consisted of a single vowel. We have a few traces of this oldest group of occupative names, e.g. Webb, Mid.

Eng. webbe, Anglo-Sax. webb-a, and Hunt, Mid. Eng. hunte, Anglo-Sax.

hunt-a--

"With hunte and horne and houndes hym bisyde"

(A, 1678)--

which still hold the field easily against Webber and Hunter.

So also, the German name Beck represents Old High Ger. pecch-o, baker.

To these must be added Kemp, a champion, a very early loan-word connected with Lat. campus, field, and Wright, originally the worker, Anglo-Sax. wyrht-a. Camp is sometimes for Kemp, but is also from the Picard form of Fr, champ, i.e. Field. Of similar formation to Webb, etc., is Clapp, from an Anglo-Sax. nickname, the clapper--

"OsG.o.d Clapa, King Edward Confessor's staller, was cast upon the pavement of the Church by a demon's hand for his insolent pride in presence of the relics (of St. Edmund, King and Martyr)."

(W. H. Hutton, Bampton Lectures, 1903.)

NAMES IN -STER

The ending -ster was originally feminine, and applied to trades chiefly carried on by women, e.g. Baxter, Bagster, baker, Brewster, Simister, sempster, Webster, etc., but in process of time the distinction was lost, so that we find Blaxter and Whitster for Blacker, Blakey, and Whiter, both of which, curiously enough, have the same meaning--

"Bleykester or whytster, candidarius" (Prompt. Parv.)--

for this black represents Mid. Eng. bla-c, related to bleak and bleach, and meaning pale--

"Blake, wan of colour, blesme (bleme)" (Palsgrave).

Occupative names of French origin are apt to vary according to the period and dialect of their adoption. For Butcher we find also Booker, Bowker, and sometimes the later Bosher, Busher, with the same sound for the ch as in Labouchere, the lady butcher. But Booker may also mean what it appears to mean, as Mid. Eng. bokere is used by Wyclif for the Latin scriba.

Butcher, originally a dealer in goat's flesh, Fr. bouc, has ousted flesher. German still has half a dozen surnames derived from names for this trade, e.g. Fleischer, Fleischmann, [Footnote: h.e.l.lenized as Sarkander. This was a favourite trick of German scholars at the Renaissance period. Well-known examples are Melancthon (Schwarzerd), Neander (Neumann).] Metzger, Schlechter; but our flesher has been absorbed by Fletcher, a maker of arrows, Fr. fleche. Fletcher Gate at Nottingham was formerly Flesher Gate. The undue extension of Taylor has already been mentioned (Chapter IV). Another example is Barker, which has swallowed up the Anglo-Fr. berquier, a shepherd, Fr. berger, with the result that the Barkers outnumber the Tanners by three to one

"'What craftsman are you?' said our King, 'I pray you, tell me now.'

'I am a barker,' quoth the tanner; 'What craftsman art thou?'"

(Edward IV. and the Tanner of Tamworth.)