“Pagan” and “Christian” were both favourite baptismal names in the Norman epoch. The former was registered as “Payn” or “Paine.” Chaucer says,—
“The constable and Dame Hermigold, his wife,
Were payens, and that country everywhere.”
All our “Pagans,” “Payns,” “Paines,” and “Pinsons” are from this old-fashioned sobriquet. A century ago, the Hon. Thomas Erskine having been seized with a serious illness, and kindly tended at Lady Payne’s house in London, wrote,—
“’Tis true I am ill; but I need not complain,
For he never knew pleasure who never knew Payne.”
Christian has never been popular in England, but Christopher has; and besides the long “Christophers” and “Christopherson,” has left us Kitts and Kitson.
Another name, a Scripture name too, is now all but wholly disused—that of Samson. I daresay many of my readers have thought that our many Sampsons are all but entirely descended from Sam-son, i.e., the son of Samuel. I have no hesitation in claiming a full half for the son of Manoah, the Danite. The old registers teem with entries like “Samson de Battisford” or “Sampson Dernebrough.” Shallow says (2 Hen. IV.), “And the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer behind Gray’s Inn.”
“I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,
To mow ’em down before me,”
says the porter’s assistant in Henry VIII. The fact is, the story of Samson was a favourite one with our forefathers, and often performed at the miracle-plays. There are nearly fifty Sampsons and Samsons in the London Directory, some of them being of purely Jewish descent. “Elegant Extracts,” a favourite storehouse of good, bad, and indifferent (very) poetry for the youth of our country in the last century, has the following, anent this name:—
“Jack, eating rotten cheese, did say,
‘Like Samson, I my thousands slay.’
‘I vow,’ quoth Roger, ‘so you do,
And with the self-same weapon too.’”
Speaking of Roger, we may note that he is fast going out of fashion. There was a day when “Hodge” was as familiar as Hob, Dicon, or Harry. A single glance at our Directory will prove this, for to him we owe all our Hodges, Hodgsons, Hodgkins, Hodgkinsons, Hodsons, Hotchkiss’s, etc. Just as Hob, from Robert, became Dob in North England, so Hodge, from Roger, became Dodge. From Dodge we get our Dodgshons, and Dodgesons. Just as, also, Hodgson became Hodson, so Dodgson has become Dodson. The Welsh turned Ap-Roger into Prodger. All this proves a popularity for Roger utterly beyond its present modest pretensions.