A very interesting group of surnames are derived from font-names taken from the great feasts of the Church, date of birth or baptism, etc. [Footnote: Names of this class were no doubt also sometimes given to foundlings.] These are more often French or Greco-Latin than English, a fact to be explained by priestly influence. Thus Christmas is much less common than Noel or Nowell, but we also find Midwinter (Chapter II) and Yule. Easter has a local origin (from a place in Essex) and also represents Mid. Eng. estre, a word of very vague meaning for part of a building, originally the exterior, from Lat. extra. It survives in Fr. les êtres d'une maison. Hester, to which Bardsley gives the same origin, I should rather connect with Old Fr. hestre (hêtre), a beech. However that may be, the Easter festival is represented in our surnames by Pascall, Cornish Pascoe, and Pask, Pash, Pace, Pack.
Patch, formerly a nickname for a jester (Chapter XX), from his motley clothes, is also sometimes a variant of Pash. And the dim. Patchett has become confused with Padgett, from Padge, a rimed form of Madge. Pentecost is recorded as a personal name in Anglo-Saxon times. Michaelmas is now Middleman (Chapter III), and Tiffany is an old name for Epiphany. It comes from Greco-Latin theophania (while Epiphany represents epiphania), which gave the French female name Tiphaine, whence our Tiffin. Lammas (loaf mass) is also found as a personal name, but there is a place called Lammas in Norfolk. We have compounds of day in Halliday or Holiday, Hay-day, for high day, Loveday, a day appointed for reconciliations, and Hockaday, for a child born during Hocktide, which begins on the 15th day after Easter. It was also called Hobday, though it is hard to say why; hence the name Hobday, unless this is to be taken as the day, or servant (Chapter XIX), in the service of Hob; cf. Hobman.
The days of the week are puzzling, the only one at all common being Munday, though most of the others are found in earlier nomenclature. We should rather expect special attention to be given to Sunday and Friday, and, in fact, Sonntag and Freytag are by far the most usual in German, while Dimanche and its perversions are common in France, and Vendredi also occurs. This makes me suspect some other origin, probably local, for Munday, the more so as Fr. Dimanche, Demange, etc., is often for the personal name Dominicus, the etymology remaining the same as that of the day-name, the Lord's day. Parts of the day seem to survive in Noon, Eve, and Morrow, but Noon is local, Fr. Noyon (cf. Moon, earlier Mohun, from Moyon), Eve is the mother of mankind, and Morrow is for moor-wro, the second element being Mid. Eng. wra, comer, whence Wray.
We find the same difficulty with the names of the months. Several of these are represented in French, but our March has four other origins, from March in Cambridgeshire, from march, a boundary, from marsh, or from Mark; while May means in Mid. English a maiden (Chapter XXI), and is also a dim. of Matthew (Chapter IX). The names of the seasons also present difficulty. Spring usually corresponds to Fr. La Fontaine (Chapter II), but we find also Lent, the old name for the season, and French has Printemps. [Footnote: The cognate Ger. Lenz is fairly common, hence the frequency of Lent in America.] Summer and Winter [Footnote: Winter was one of Hereward's most faithful comrades.] are found very early as nicknames, as are also Frost and Snow; but why always Summers or Somers with s and Winter without? [Footnote: Two other common nicknames were Flint and Steel.] The latter has no doubt in many cases absorbed Vinter, vintner (Chapter III) but this will not account for the complete absence of genitive forms. And what has become of the other season? We should not expect to find the learned word "autumn," but neither Fall nor Harvest, the true English equivalents, are at all common as surnames.
I regard this group, viz. days, months, seasons, as one of the least clearly accounted for in our nomenclature, and cannot help thinking that the more copious examples which we find in French and German are largely distorted forms due to the imitative instinct, or are susceptible of other explanations. This is certainly true in some cases, e.g. Fr. Mars is the regular French development of Medardus, a saint to whom a well-known Parisian church is dedicated; and the relationship of Janvier to Janus may be via the Late Lat. januarius, for janitor, a doorkeeper.
[Footnote: Medardus was the saint who, according to Ingoldsby, lived largely on oysters obtained by the Red Sea shore. At his church in Paris were performed the 'miracles' of the Quietists in the seventeenth century. When the scenes that took place became a scandal, the government intervened, with the result that a wag adorned the church door with the following:
De par le Roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracle en ce lieu."]
"During the whole evening Mr. Jellyby sat in a corner with his head against the wall, as if he were subject to low spirits."