“Those that Hob-goblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their worst, and they shall have good luck.”
In the extreme north of England the pet name for Robert was Dob, or “Dobbin.” Curiously enough, to this day the term for Hob-goblin is there “Dobby.” [63] I ask the reader, if this can be an accident? Could it have been possible that five distinct names should be given to the ignis fatuus, or to such woodland elves as were supposed to reveal themselves under his frolicsome light, all having Robert as their chief component, had not the thousand and one stories about Robin Hood and his merry men and their nightly escapades been spread over the land by the ballad-mongers of the time that immediately followed his death?
(4.) Once more: look at our general nomenclature of men, birds, beasts, and shrubs. So common had “Hob” become in the northern and midland districts (for every man you might meet ’twixt York and Leicester was sure to be “Hob”), that it became a cant term for a country yokel. Thomas Fuller in his “Lives” speaks of “country-hobs” where we should speak of “country-men.” Thus, too, Coriolanus is made to say—
“Why in this wool-less toge should I stand here,
To beg of Hob and Dick?”
The jack-ass is just as often called “dobbin” in the north, and an ewe-lamb a hob-lamb. The tame ruddock has become the “robin redbreast”; a chicken, a roblet (robelot, i.e., little robin); bindweed goes by the title of “Robin-run in the hedge”; the common club moss is “Robin Hood’s hatband”; while every child is familiar with “ragged robin,” and “herb-robert.”
Surely this is enough to testify to the popularity of Robert! The fact is, that Robin Hood gave a start to his name similar in its effects to that of a snowball. He has grasped all he has touched. He has left his memory upon everything. He has stamped his march upon things animate and inanimate. So long as we have a language and a dictionary, a nomenclature, and a directory, we shall daily be reading and looking upon words and names which, however meaningless on the surface, are teeming with recollections of the bold outlaw, whose thrilling adventures, whose kindly bounties, whose supposed devotion to liberty, made him the idol of his own time, and an object of interest to his countrymen so long as England shall endure.
And now we may ask, what has Robin Hood done for English nomenclature, so far as surnames are concerned? Well, in the first place, he made “Robert” the favourite name at the font for a century at least. We even find Robin Hood itself appearing as a surname. A tradesman bearing the sobriquet of Thomas Robyn-Hod, lived at Winchelsea in 1388. At the very time that Robert was thus popular, baptismal surnames were being established. As a consequence, Robert was no sooner a Christian name than it became a candidate for the place of a surname. Remembering the different pet names in familiar use, it will not be so astonishing that I should be able to collect no fewer than forty-six separately-spelled surnames, all descended from this one single appellation! while London alone could gather into Hyde Park as many as five thousand souls whose individuality is recognised by their associates through the medium of this famous title.
(a) Robert has given us Robert, Roberts, Robart, Robarts, Robertson, Roberson, and Roberton.
(b) Robin has bequeathed Robin, Robins, Robbins, Roblin, Robinson, and Robison.
(c) Rob has left us Robb, Robbs, Robbie, Robson Robkins, Ropkins, and Ropes.