Rufus is, indeed, the Latin member of the large family of which we spoke in mentioning the Greek Rhoda; and the Kelts had, in plenty, their own Ruadh or Roy; nevertheless, such as fell under Roman dominion adopted the Roman Rufus or Rufinus; and it passed on by tradition in Wales, as Gruffin, Gruffydd, or as the English caught it and spelt it, correctly representing the sound of dd, Griffith. It was the name of many Welsh princes, and has passed into a frequent surname.
In its Gruffin stage, it passed into the commonwealth of romance. Among the British names that had worked through the lost world of minstrelsy, to reappear in the cycle with which Italian poets graced the camp and court of Charlemagne, is Grifone, a descendant of Bevis of Hampton. By this time, no doubt, his name was supposed to be connected with the Griffin, that creature with griffes, or claws; that[that] after having served in earlier times, as with Dante, to represent the Italian idea of the vision of the cherubim, had been gradually degraded to a brilliant portion of the machinery of romance.
No doubt the Italians who bore the name of Grifone, thought more of the “right Griffin” and the true knight, than of the ruddy Roman whose Ruffino or Ruffo was still left lingering among them; together with Rufina, the name of a virgin martyr.
Rufus is, for some reason or other, rather a favourite at present with our American neighbours.
Niger (the black) was a cognomen of various Romans of no great note, and distinguished a teacher from Antioch, mentioned in the Acts. The diminutive Nigellus seems to have been adopted in France, by the Normans, as a translation of the Nial which they had brought from Norway, after having learned it of the Gael, in whose tongue it means the noble. In Domesday Book, twelve proprietors are recorded as Nigel, both before and after the Conquest, being probably Danish Nials thus reduced to the Neustrian French Latin. Of these was Nigel de Albini (temp. William I.), and Nigel de Mowbray (temp. Henry II.). The influx of Anglo-Normans into Scotland introduced this new-fashioned Nigel, and it was adopted as the English form of Niel, and has since become almost exclusively confined to Scotland, where it is a national name, partly perhaps in memory of the untimely fate of Niel or Nigel Bruce; and among the covenanters, for the sake of the fierce Nigel Leslie, Master of Rothes. It has shared the fate of Colin and of the true Nial, and has been taken for Nicolas. The French used a like name, which Froissart spells Nesle; but this is probably from the inference that a lengthened sound of e infers a silent s.
CHAPTER V.
NAMES FROM ROMAN DEITIES.
Section I.
A short chapter must be given to the modern names that, in spite of the canon prohibiting the giving of names of heathen gods in baptism, are either those of Latin divinities, or are derived from them. These, though few in number, are more than are to be found in the Greek class, from the fact that where a Roman deity had become identified with a Greek one, the Latin name was used throughout Western Europe in all translations, and only modern criticism has attempted to distinguish between the distinct myths of the two races. Most of these are, or have been, in use either in France or England, the modern countries most under the dominion of fancy with regard to names.
Aurora (the dawn), so called, it is said, from aurum (gold), because of the golden light she sheds before her, assumed all the legends attached by the Greeks to their Eos, whose rosy fingers unbarred the gates of day. When the Cinque-cento made classic lore the fashion, Aurore came into favour with the fair dames of France, and has ever since there continued in vogue, occasionally passing into Germany. In Illyria, the dawn and the lady are both called Zora, and she in endearment Zorana.[[67]]
Bellona was not a goddess whose name one would have expected to find renewed in Christian times, yet instances have been found of it in England among those who probably had some idea that it was connected with beauty instead of with bellum (war). In effect, hers is not quite a proper name, being really an adjective, with the noun understood, Bellona Dea (the war goddess). An infant born in the streets of Weimar during the sack that followed the battle of Jena was named Angelina Bellona, as having been an angel of comfort to her parents in the miseries of war. She became a great musician, and won renown for her name in her own land.[[68]]