(e) Names of foreign towns, the result of earlier or later immigration, come next: such as “Cullen” from Cologne, a name very familiar to English Roman Catholics; “Lyons” from the city devoted to the silk trade; “Bullen” or “Boleyn” from Boulogne; or “Janeway” or “Jannaway” from Genoa.
Many of these foreign town-names came into England through the fact that the towns they represented were celebrated for some particular production. The “Challens” of our Directory all hail from Chalons, once so famous for its blankets that they were called “chalons” for several centuries. The name still lingers in the woollen trade of Yorkshire as “shaloon cloth.” Chaucer speaks both of “chalons” and “cloth of raines.” This was made at Rennes in Brittany, and has furnished the London Directory with its various Rains, Rain, Raine, and Raines. A writer in the “Book of Days” says the following was written upon a lady bearing the name of Rain:—
“Whilst shiv’ring beaux at weather rail,
Of frost, and snow, and wind, and hail,
And heat, and cold, complain,
My steadier mind is always bent
On one sole object of content,—
I ever wish for Rain!“Hymen, thy votary’s praise attend,
His anxious hope and suit befriend,
Let him not ask in vain:
His thirsty soul, his parched estate,
His glowing breast commiserate—
In pity give him Rain!”
(f) Names of counties naturally follow the last class: as Derbyshire, or Kent, or Lancashire, or Cumberland, or Kentish, or Devonish, or Cornish, or Cornwall. A new comer would easily get a sobriquet of this sort after stepping across the border line of two contiguous shires.
(g) Names of countries and nationalities may fitly be set last: as Ireland, Scott, Welsh, Walsh, Wallace, English. These, of course, are marks of migration. If an Englishman went into Scotland he would be Peter the English, or Inglis; or vice versâ, he would be Peter the Scot. Foreign districts are represented by such names as “Britton” from Brittany, “Burgon,” or “Burgoyne,” from Burgundy, “Gaskin” from Gascony, and so on with French, Holland, Fleming, and Aleman or Alman, the old name for Germany. The French form for this latter is “D’Almaine,” or “Lallimand.” Both have found their way to London; thus showing a double immigration, first from Germany to France, and then from France to England. Our Sarasins and, Sarsons (when not metronymics for Sara-son, i.e. Sarah’s son) are interesting relics of crusading times, when the Templar loved to bring back with him a young Saracen boy to act as his page. The name is enrolled as “Sarracen” in many ancient registers. Turk also exists. A “William le Turk” lived in London just four hundred years ago, and four “Turks” may be seen in the Directory to-day. The Rev. Richard Thorpe, incumbent of Christ Church, Camberwell, married Thomas Turk to Jane Russ on October 26th, 1877, during the negotiations for peace at Constantinople. How one wishes that such a hopeful union might be brought about between the nations represented by the names of this pair! It is fair to add, that in this case “Russ” is merely a corruption of “Rous,” or of “Rouse,” red-haired or ruddy-complexioned—a favourite nickname with our forefathers. Our “Rowses” and “Russells” are of similar origin.
One name in the London Directory deserves a paragraph to itself, and also to be classified alone, if one single sobriquet can be said to comprise a class. This remarkable surname is “World.” What a cosmopolitan the ancestor of the bearer of this title must have been! Mr. Bowditch, an American writer on surnames, has recorded an instance in the Western continent, for he says, “Columbus discovered a world, and so have I. Mr. World lives at Orilla.” The sobriquet of course is a corruption, but of what I cannot say.
We might go on like Tennyson’s brook, “for ever,” in this chat over local names,—but enough. We have only left ourselves space to remind the reader what vagrants we all are. Like Dickens’ little street boy (in “Bleak House,” I think it is), there seems ever to be a shadowy policeman at our elbow bidding us to “move on.” The Bible has foretold that this is to be our condition; and our names, at least those of local origin, have impressed on our very foreheads the truth of such a Divine prophecy. ’Tis well it should be so. Earth is not to be our dwelling-place for ever. And though at times we may feel that we should like repose, it is in mercy that God applies the goad, for thus are we reminded that—
“Our rest is in Heaven, our rest is not here.”
The day will assuredly dawn for the Christian when he shall be enabled to take off his travel-worn shoes, when he shall enter into the home to which he has been making his way through so many weary stages, and from which there shall be no going forth, even for ever and for ever. May every reader of this chapter be amongst that multitude of “vagabonds in the earth,” to use a Scripture phrase, who shall then “enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.”