The Restoration practically ended the conflict, but it was a truce; for both sides, so far as nomenclature is concerned, retained trophies of victory, and, on the whole, the Hebrew was the gainer. At the start he had little to lose, and he has filled the land with titles that had lain in abeyance for four thousand years. The old English yeoman has lost many of his most honoured cognomens, but he can still, at least, boast one thing. The two names that were foremost before the middle of the twelfth century stand at this moment in the same position. Out of every hundred children baptized in England, thirteen are entered in the register as John or William. The Cavalier, too, can boast that “Charles,”[28] although there were not more of that name throughout the length and breadth of England at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign than could be counted on the fingers of one hand, now occupies the sixth place among male baptismal names.
Several names, now predominant, were for various reasons lifted above the contest. George holds the fourth position among boys; Mary and Elizabeth, the first and second among girls. George dates all his popularity from the last century, and Mary was in danger of becoming obsolete at the close of Elizabeth’s reign, so hateful had it become to Englishmen, whether Churchmen or Presbyterians. It was at this time Philip, too, lost a place it can never recover. But the fates came to the rescue of Mary, when the Prince of Orange landed at Torbay, and sate with James’s daughter on England’s throne. It has been first favourite ever since. As for Elizabeth, a chapter might be written upon it. Just known, and no more, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, it was speedily popularized in the “daughter of the Reformation.” The Puritans, in spite of persecution and other provocations, were ever true to “Good Queen Bess.” The name, too, was scriptural, and had not been mixed up with centuries of Romish superstition. Elizabeth ruled supreme, and was contorted and twisted into every conceivable shape that ingenuity could devise. It narrowly escaped the diminutive desinence, for Ezot and Ezota occur to my knowledge four times in records between 1500 and 1530. But Bess and Bessie took up the running, and, a century later, Bett and Betty. It will surprise almost all my readers, I suspect, to know that the “Lady Bettys” of the early part of last century were never, or rarely ever, christened Elizabeth. Queen Anne’s reign, even William and Mary’s reign, saw the fashionable rage for Latinized forms, already referred to, setting in. Elizabeth was turned into Bethia and Betha:
“1707, Jan. 2. Married Willm. Simonds and Bethia Ligbourne.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.
“1721. Married Charles Bawden to Bethia Thornton.”—Somerset House Chapel.
“1748. Married Adam Allyn to Bethia Lee.”[29]—Ditto.
The familiar form of this was Betty:
“Betty Trevor, wife of the Hon. John Trevor, eldest d. of Sir Thomas Frankland, of Thirkleby, in the county of York, Baronet, ob. Dec. 28, 1742, ætat. 25.”—“Suss. Arch. Coll.,” xvii. 148.
Bess was forgotten, and it was not till the present century that, Betty having become the property of the lower orders, who had soon learnt to copy their betters, the higher classes fell back once more on the Bessie of Reformation days.
Meanwhile other freaks of fancy had a turn. Bessie and Betty were dropped into a mill, and ground out as Betsy. This, after a while, was relegated to the peasantry and artisans north of Trent. Then Tetty and Tetsy had an innings. Dr. Johnson always called his wife Tetty. Writing March 28, 1753, he says—
“I kept this day as the anniversary of my Tetty’s death, with prayer and tears in the morning.”