The best instance, however, I know of this use of the word is in Foxe’s Martyrology, where, describing the martyrdom of a young child not seven years old, he says: “The captain, perceiving the child invincible, and himself vanquished, committed the silly soul, the blessed babe, the child uncherished, to the stinking prison.” Here, of course, silly is the equivalent of innocent, or inoffensive. Our Sillymans and Sillys and Seeleys may fairly claim that theirs was a complimentary nickname. I mention these as instances only of a large class.
When we come to bonâ-fide cases, we shall discover, not with any surprise, that almost all our nicknames are complimentary! Our forefathers must have been a most highly respectable set of fellows, judging by this famous Directory. They never got drunk, for who can find a man who but rarely transgressed the limit of sobriety in our directories? There is not a trace of meanness or cowardice about them. ’Tis true Coward is a common name, but then, as already shown, it is not a nickname at all, but an occupation, being none other than our old friend the cow-herd. On the other hand, see what a large number of Doughtys there are, and Bolds, and Gallants, and Prews, all backed up by Hardy, who worthily sits in the Cabinet. We meet with courtesy in our Curtis’s and Curteis’s; with nobility in our Goodharts and Trumans; with humility in our Humbles and Meeks; with kindliness in our Gentles and Sweets; with firmness in our Steadys and Graves; and with liveliness in our Sharps, Quicks, and Wittys. Nor are more abstract charms wanting. It can be truly said that there are plenty of Graces, for at least twelve appear. Faith and Hope are there,—only Charity is wanting. Honour, Virtue, and Wisdom, however, make up in some degree for the absence of that gentle quality. Some people are “Good,” but to be “Goodenough” and “Thorowgood” or “Thoroughgood,” let alone “Toogood,” seems only possible in our nomenclature. Many people, too, are “Perfect” in it, and “Sin” is not there, though “Want” is. Some cynic may say that Truth is conspicuous by its absence, but how can that be in the presence of five “Veritys”? Not merely are we in the atmosphere of constant Spring, and Blossoms, and Budds, but twenty-five Summers appear in the same year, and Rosinbloom blows the twelve months round! The “Tabernacle,” the “Temple,” and endless Churches for Churchfolk, Kirks for Scotch people, and Chapells for Nonconformists, are to be descried on every hand. Service is carried on from year to year, to suit all tastes; there are seven Creeds; Heaven and Paradise, with their attendant Bliss, complete the picture. Oh, what a wonderful community we seem to be in this directory of ours! Human nature would appear to have overridden and crushed all its weaker infirmities, and issued forth into something like what its poets have loved to depicture it. The London Directory is the great parish register of Utopia.
That some sad infirmities did once really exist our olden records show, if our directories of to-day do not. Who could conceive, after this last picture, that Bustler and Meddler once loved to make their objectionable presence felt; that Foolhardy and Giddyhead won for themselves a vain notoriety; that Cruel and Fierce delighted to display their unbridled passions; that Wilful and Sullen fed their hidden and unconsumed fires; and that Milksop and Sparewater had the impudence to show their faces in polite society? Yet such was the case! If there had been a directory of London published by authority under the reign of Henry the Seventh, all these names, and a hundred others of a similar kind, would have found habitation in its pages.
We may here notice that two modern instances of nicknames occupied public attention a few months ago. They are of advantage as showing how easily and even naturally sobriquets of this class fix themselves upon the bearers, and how readily they are accepted by the same. They are the more worthy of attention because they are borne by men of high estate. It was less than a year ago that the English papers announced the death of a well-known native Indian merchant who had been knighted by Her Majesty. What was his surname? Nothing more nor less than Readymoney! The worthy merchant commonly signed himself as such. He was notorious for his princely generosity, and one of his peculiarities was to pay down at once whatever sums he devoted to the different charities he patronised. So well-known was he for this practice, that he acquired the nickname of Readymoney. The other instance is that of the King of Bonny. He was brought up in England, and is one of the first African potentates who has embraced and been trained, in the religion of Jesus Christ. A large amount of pepper has come to England every year from his dominions, so the traders got into the way of styling him King Pepper. The natives being more accustomed to liquid letters, turned it into Pepple. What is the consequence? The king has taken it for his surname; and when he appeared two years ago at St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the service held by the Pan-Anglican Synod, the newspapers did not fail to note the fact, and without any thought of depreciation of his high position as an African potentate, gravely announced that in the vast congregation that swelled the limits of the metropolitan cathedral, was to be seen, joining reverently in the service, His Majesty King Pepple! What can more vividly demonstrate to us in the nineteenth century the ease with which these nicknames—some sober, some ludicrous, some complimentary, some the reverse—would be affixed to certain of our forefathers four or five hundred years ago, and cling to them and to their posterity to all time?
Every old list of names had its large proportion of nicknames. Take the members of the York Corpus Christi Guild of the fifteenth century. We find such associates as Henry Langbane (Longbone), John Ambuler (from his gait), Thomas Chaste, William Fellowship (from his social habits), Agnes Blakmantyll (Black-mantle, from some favoured garment she wore), Margaret Amorous, Thomas Brownlace, William Fairbarne (pretty child), Agnes Fatty, William Goodbarne (good child), William Goodlad, John Godherd (if not Goddard, then Good-herd), Richard Gayswain, Richard Preitouse, John Young, Robert Pepirkorne, John Makblyth (Make-blithe, a very pretty name), Isabella Maw, William Wyldest, Peter Trussebutt, John Handelesse, John Corderoy, John Bentbow, Robert Sparrow, and William Nutbrown. These are all trades members of the same guild in the then small city of York. Their origins are as simple as they are various. In Makeblithe, Fellowship, and Gayswain, we see a joyous disposition; in Peppercorn and Truss-butt, the owners’ business; in Amorous, Chaste, or Goodbairn, moral characteristics; in Blackmantle and Brownlace, peculiarities of habit; in Longbone, Handless, and Nutbrown, bodily idiosyncracies. And so on with the rest. What a mine of surnames is here opened out to view! How largely representative is the London Directory, we have already seen in the case of animal names, to which class belongs Robert Sparrow in the above list.
In continuing the subject, it is at once manifest that we can but generalize. We have had to do so with all the other classes; especially are we compelled in the division we have styled “Nicknames.”
Look at bodily peculiarities. There is not a shape man can assume, but is described in the Directory. There is not an accident that can befall him but it is there recorded, just as if it were the entry book of cases for a London hospital. There is not a peculiarity in his style of dress, or management of his limbs, or complexion of his skin, or colour of his hair, that is not set down with as great a care as if he were a suspected character in a detective’s notebook. Nevertheless, let us be careful not to fall into a trap. A hundred local names look very like nicknames. Tallboy occurs twice in our Directory. These gentlemen represent the Norman Talboys frequently found in Domesday Book. Longness, Thickness, and Redness, may not mean Longnose, Thicknose, and Rednose, although nose was “ness” in the days when these surnames arose. Thickness is known to be local. Any sharp promontory on the coast is a Naze or Ness (i.e. a Nose). Hence such a name as Dengeness in Kent. A Miss Charlotte Ness inquired the meaning of the logical terms abstract and concrete. The answer was given in verse:
“Say what is abstract, what concrete?
Their difference define.”
“They both in one fair person meet,
And that, dear maid, is thine.”“How so? The riddle pray undo.”
“I thus your wish express:
For when I lovely Charlotte view,
I then view loveli-Ness.”
Still we may safely assume of the great majority that they are what they seem to be. We will at once proceed to inspect some of them.
Let us begin with the head, keeping our eye meantime on the pages of the Directory for evidence.