But we cannot always be sure of the origin of even the commonest surnames. For instance, every person named Smith is not descended from a smith, for the name also comes from the old word smoth, or "smooth," and this is the origin of Smith in Smithfield.
A great many English surnames were taken from places. Street, Ford, Lane, Brooke, Styles, are names of this kind. Sometimes they were prefixed by the Old English atte ("at") or the French de la ("of the"), but these prefixes have been dropped since. Geoffrey atte Style was the Geoffrey who lived near the stile—and so on.
Nearly all the names ending in hurst and shaw are taken from places. A hurst was a wood or grove; a shaw was a shelter for fowls and animals. The chief thing about a man who got the surname of Henshaw or Ramshaw was probably that he owned, or had the care of, such a shelter for hens or rams.
Names ending in ley generally came into existence in the same way, a ley being also a shelter for domestic animals. So we have Horsley, Cowley, Hartley, Shipley (from "sheep"). Sometimes the name was taken from the kind of trees which closed such a shelter in, names like Ashley, Elmsley, Oakley, Lindley, etc.
Surnames as well as Christian names were often taken from the names of saints. From such a beautiful name as St. Hugh the Normans had Hugon, and from this we get the rather commonplace names of Huggins, Hutchins, Hutchinson, and several others. So St. Clair is still a surname, though often changed into Sinclair. St. Gilbert is responsible for the names Gibbs, Gibbons, Gibson, etc.
Sometimes in Scotland people were given, as Christian names, names meaning servant of Christ, or some saint. The word for servant was giollo, or giolla. It was in this way that names like Gilchrist, Gilpatrick, first came to be used. They were at first Christian names, and then came to be passed on as surnames. So Gillespie means "servant of the bishop."
Some surnames, though they seem quite English now, show that the first member of the family to bear the name was looked upon as a foreigner. Such names are Newman, Newcome, Cumming (from cumma, "a stranger"). Sometimes the nationality to which the stranger belonged is shown by the name. The ancestors of the people called Fleming, for instance, must have come from Flanders, as so many did in the Middle Ages. The Brabazons must have come from Brabant.
Perhaps the most peculiar origin of all belongs to some surnames which seem to have come from oaths or exclamations. The fairly common names Pardoe, Pardie, etc., come from the older name Pardieu, or "By God," a solemn form of oath. We have, too, the English form in the name Bigod. Names like Rummiley come from the old cry of sailors, Rummylow, which they used as sailors use "Heave-ho" now.
But many chapters could be written on the history of names. This chapter shows only some of the ways in which we got our Christian names and surnames.