(Cocke Lorelles Bote.)
[Footnote: This humorous poem, inspired by Sebastian Brandt's Narrenschiff, known in England in Barclay's translation, was printed early in the reign of Henry VIII. It contains the fullest list we have of old trade-names.]
Every family name is etymologically a nickname, i.e. an eke-name, intended to give that auxiliary information which helps in identification. But writers on surnames have generally made a special class of those epithets which were originally conferred on the bearer in connection with some characteristic feature, physical or moral, or some adjunct, often of the most trifling description, with which his personality was associated. Of nicknames, as of other things, it may be said that there is nothing new under the sun. Ovidius Naso might have received his as a schoolboy, and Moss cum nano, whom we find in Suffolk in 1184, lives on as "Nosey Moss" in Whitechapel. Some of our nicknames occur as personal names in Anglo-Saxon times (Chapter VII), but as surnames they are seldom to be traced back to that period, for the simple reason that such names were not hereditary. An Anglo-Saxon might be named Wulf, but his son would bear another name, while our modern Wolfe does not usually go farther back than some Ranulf le wolf of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. This is of course stating the case broadly, because the personal name Wolf also persisted and became in some cases a surname. In this and the following chapters I do not generally attempt to distinguish between such double origins.
Nicknames are formed in very many ways, but the two largest classes are sobriquets taken from the names of animals, e.g. Hogg, or from adjectives, either alone or accompanied by a noun, e.g. Dear, Goodfellow. Each of these classes requires a chapter to itself, while here we may deal with the smaller groups.
Some writers have attempted to explain all apparent nicknames as popular perversions of surnames belonging to the other three classes. As the reader will already have noticed, such perversions are extremely common, but it is a mistake to try to account for obvious nicknames in this way. Any of us who retain a vivid recollection of early days can call to mind nicknames of the most fantastic kind, and in some cases of the most apparently impossible formation, which stuck to their possessors all through school-life. A very simple test for the genuineness of a nickname is a comparison with other languages. Camden says that Drinkwater is a corruption of Derwentwater. The incorrectness of this guess is shown by the existence as surnames of Fr. Boileau, It. Bevilacqua, and Ger. Trinkwasser. It is in fact a perfectly natural nickname for a medieval eccentric, the more normal attitude being represented by Roger Beyvin (boi-vin), who died in London in 1277.
Corresponding to our Goodday, we find Ger. Gutentag and Fr. Bonjour. The latter has been explained as from a popular form of George, but the English and German names show that the explanation is. unnecessary. With Dry we may compare Fr. Lesec and Ger. Dürr, with Garlick Ger. Knoblauch (Chapter XV), and with Shakespeare Ger. Schüttespeer. Luck is both for Luke and Luick (Liège, Chapter XI), but Rosa Bonheur and the composer Gluck certify it also as a nickname. Merryweather is like Fr. Bontemps, and Littleboy appears in the Paris Directory as Petitgas, gas being the same as gars, the old nominative (Chapter I) of garçon—
"Gars, a lad, boy, stripling, youth, yonker" (Cotgrave).
Bardsley explains Twentyman as an imitative corruption of twinter-man, the man in charge of the twinters, two-year-old colts. This may be so, but there is a German confectioner in Hampstead called Zwanziger, and there are Parisians named Vingtain. Lover is confirmed by the French surnames Amant and Lamoureux, and Wellbeloved by Bienaimé. Allways may be the literal equivalent of the French name Partout. On the other hand, the name Praisegod Barebones has been wrongly fixed on an individual whose real name was Barbon or Barborne.
It may seem strange that the nickname, conferred essentially on the individual, and often of a very offensive character, should have persisted and become hereditary. But schoolboys know that, in the case of an unpleasant nickname, the more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster. Malapert and Lehideux are still well represented in the Paris Directory. Many objectionable nicknames have, however, disappeared, or have been so modified as to become inoffensive.