"Though ye may think him a lamiter, yet, grippie for grippie,
he'll make the bluid spin frae under your nails" (Black Dwarf, ch. xvii.).
Pettigrew and Pettifer are of French origin, pied de grue (crane) and pied de fer. The former is the origin of the word pedigree, from a sign used in drawing genealogical trees. The Buckinghamshire name Puddifoot or Puddephatt (Podefat, 1273) and the aristocratic Pauncefote are unsolved. The former may be a corruption of Pettifer, which occurs commonly, along with the intermediate Puddifer, in the same county. But the English Dialect Dictionary gives as an obsolete Northants word the adjective puddy, stumpy, pudgy, applied especially to hands, fingers, etc., and Pudito (puddy toe) occurs as a surname in the Hundred Rolls. As for Pauncefote, I believe it simply means what it appears to, viz. "belly-foot," a curious formation, though not without parallels, among obsolete rustic nicknames. If these two conjectures are correct, both Puddifoot and Pauncefote may be almost literal equivalents of the Greek OEdipus, i.e. "swell-foot."
In other languages as well as English we find money nicknames. It is easy to understand how some of these come into existence, e.g. that Pierce. Pennilesse was the opposite of Thomas Thousandpound, whose name occurs c. 1300. With the latter we may compare Fr. Centlivre, the name of an English lady dramatist of the eighteenth century. Moneypenny is found in 1273 as Manipeni, and a Londoner named Manypeny died in 1348. The Money- is partly north country, partly imitative.
Money itself is usually occupative or local (Chapter XVII), and Shilling is the Anglo-Saxon name Scilling. The oldest and commonest of such nicknames is the simple Penny, with which we may compare the German surname Pfennig and its compounds Barpfennig, Weisspfennig, etc. The early adoption of this coin-name as a personal name is due to the fact that the word was taken in the sense of money in general. We still speak of a rich man as "worth a pretty penny." Hallmark is folk-etymology for the medieval Half-mark. Such medieval names as Four-pence, Twenty-mark, etc., probably now obsolete, are paralleled by Fr. Quatresous and Sixdenier, still to be found in the Paris Directory. It would be easy to form conjectures as to the various ways in which such names may have come into existence. To the same class must belong Besant, the name of a coin from Byzantium, its foreign origin giving it a dignity which is absent from the native Farthing and Halfpenny, though the latter, in one instance, was improved beyond recognition into MacAlpine.
There is also a small group of surnames derived from oaths or exclamations which by habitual use became associated with certain individuals. We know that monarchs had a special tendency to indulge in a favourite expletive. To Roger de Collerye we owe some information as to the imprecations preferred by four French kings—
"Quand la Pasque-Dieu (Louis XI.) décéda,
Le Bon Jour Dieu (Charles VIII.) luy succéda,
Au Bon Jour Dieu deffunct et mort
Succéda le Dyable m'emport (Louis XII).
Luy décédé, nous voyons comme
Nous duist (governs) la Foy de Gentilhomme (Francis I.)."
So important was this branch of linguistics once considered that Palsgrave, the French tutor of Princess Mary Tudor, includes in his Esclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse a section on "The Maners of Cursyng." Among the examples are "Le grant diable luy rompe le col et les deux jambes," "Le diable l'emporte, corps et ame, tripes et boyaux," which were unfortunately too long for surname purposes, but an abridged form of "Le feu Saint Anthoyne l'arde" [Footnote: Saint Anthony's fire, i.e. erysipelas, burn him!] has given the French name Feulard. Such names, usually containing the name of God, e.g. Godmefetch, Helpusgod, have mostly disappeared in this country; but Dieuleveut and Dieumegard are still found in Paris, and Gottbehüt, God forbid, and Gotthelf, God help, occur in German. Godbehere still exists, and there is not the slightest reason why it should not be of the origin which its form indicates. In Gracedieu, thanks to God, the second element is an Old French dative. Pardoe, Purdue, whence Purdey, is for par Dieu-—
"I have a wyf pardee, as wel as thow" (A, 3158).
There is a well-known professional footballer named Mordue ('sdeath), and a French composer named Boieldieu (God's bowels). The French nickname for an Englishman, goddam—