Stories That Words Tell Us

by Elizabeth O'Neill

Many surnames have come down from nicknames given to people because of their good or bad qualities. This is the origin of names like Wise, Gay, Hardy, Friend, Truman, Makepeace, Sweet, etc. The people who have these names may well believe that the first of their ancestors who bore them was of a gentle and amiable disposition. Names like Proud, Proudfoot, Proudman, Paillard (French for "lie-a-bed") show that the first people who had them were not so well liked, and were considered proud or lazy.

Another way of giving nicknames to people because of something noticeable in their character or appearance was to give them the name of some animal having this quality. The well-known name of Oliphant comes from elephant, and was probably first given to some one very large, and perhaps a little ungraceful. Bullock as a surname probably had the same sort of origin. The names Falcon, Hawk, Buzzard, must have been first given to people whose friends and neighbours saw some resemblance to the quickness or fierceness or sureness or some other quality of these birds in them. The names Jay, Peacock, and Parrott point to showiness and pride and empty talkativeness.

A very great number of surnames are really only old Christian names either with or without an ending added to them. A very common form of surname is a Christian name with son added to it. The first man who handed on the name Wilson (or Willson, as it is still sometimes spelt) was himself the "son of Will." Any one can think of many names of this kind—Williamson, Davidson, Adamson, etc. Sometimes the founder of a family had taken his name from his mother. This was the origin of names like Margerison ("Marjorie's son") and Alison ("Alice's son"). This was a very common way of inventing surnames.

The Norman Fitz meant "son of," and the numerous names beginning with Fitz have this origin. Fitzpatrick originally meant the "son of Patrick," Fitzstephen the "son of Stephen," and so on. The Irish prefix O' has the same meaning. The ancestor of all the O'Neills was himself the son of Neill. The Scandinavian Nillson is really the same name, though it sounds so different. The Scotch Mac has the same meaning, and so have the Welsh words map, mab, ap, and ab.

One very interesting way of making surnames was to take them from the trade or occupation of the founder of the family. Perhaps the commonest of English surnames is Smith. And the word for Smith is the commonest surname in almost every country of Europe. In France we have Favier.

The reason for this is easy to see. The smith, or man who made iron and other metals into plough-shares and swords, was one of the most important of all the workers in the early days when surnames were being made. There were many smiths, and John the Smith and Tom the Smith easily became John Smith and Tom Smith, and thus had a surname to pass on to their families.

As time went on there came to be many different kinds of smiths. There was the smith who worked in gold, and was called a "goldsmith," from which we get the well-known surname Goldsmith, the name of a great English writer. Then there was the "nail smith," from which trade came the name Nasmith; the "sickle smith," from which came Sixsmith; the "shear smith," which gave us Shearsmith—and so on.

In mediæval England the manufacture of cloth from the wool of the great flocks of sheep which fed on the pasture lands of the monasteries and other great houses, was the chief industry of the nation. This trade of wool-weaving has given us many surnames, such as Woolmer, Woolman, Carder, Kempster, Towser, Weaver, Webster, etc. Some of these referred to the general work of wool-weaving and others to special branches.

Any child can think in a moment of several names which have come in this way from trades. We have Taylor for a beginning.

But many surnames which are taken from the names of trades come from Old English words which are now seldom or never used. Chapman, a common name now, was the Old English word for a general dealer. Spicer was the old name for grocer, and is now a fairly common surname. The well-known name of Fletcher comes from the almost forgotten word flechier, "an arrowmaker." Coltman came from the name of the man who had charge of the colts. Runciman was the man who had charge of horses too, and comes from another Old English word, rouncy, "a horse." The Parkers are descended from a park-keeper who used to be called by that name. The Horners come from a maker of horns; the Crockers and Crokers from a "croker," or "crocker," a maker of pottery. Hogarth comes from "hoggart," a hog-herd; Calvert from "calf-herd;" and Seward from "sow-herd." Lambert sometimes came from "lamb-herd."