"Now as men have always first given names unto places, so hath it afterwards grown usuall that men have taken their names from places"
(VERSTEGAN, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence).
There is an idea cherished by some people that the possession of a surname which is that of a village or other locality points to ancestral ownership of that region. This is a delusion. In the case of quite small features of the landscape, e.g. Bridge, Hill, the name was given from place of residence. But in the case of counties, towns and villages, the name was usually acquired when the locality was left. Thus John Tiler leaving Acton, perhaps for Acton's good, would be known in his new surroundings as John Acton. A moment's reflection will show that this must be so. Scott is an English name, the aristocratic Scotts beyond the border representing a Norman family Escot, originally of Scottish origin. English, early spelt Inglis, is a Scottish name. The names Cornish and Cornwallis first became common in Devonshire, as Devenish did outside that county. French and Francis, Old Fr. le franceis, are English names, just as Langlois (l'Anglais) is common in France. For the same reason Cutler is a rare name in Sheffield, where all are cutlers. By exception the name Curnow, which is Cornish for a Cornishman, is fairly common in its native county, but it was perhaps applied especially to those inhabitants who could only speak the old Cornish language.
The local name may range in origin from a country to a plant (France, Darbishire, Lankester, Ashby, Street, House, Pound, Plumptre, Daisy), and, mathematically stated, the size of the locality will vary in direct proportion to the distance from which the immigrant has come. Terentius Afer was named from a continent. I cannot find a parallel in England, but names such as the nouns France, Ireland, Pettingell (Portugal), or the adjectives Dench, Mid. Eng. dense, Danish, Norman, Welsh, (Walsh, Wallis, etc.), Allman (Allemand), often perverted to Almond, were considered a sufficient mark of identification for men who came from foreign parts. But the untravelled inhabitant, if distinguished by a local name, would often receive it from some very minute feature of the landscape, e.g. Solomon Daisy may have been descended from a Robert Dayeseye, who lived in Hunts in 1273. It is not very easy to see how such very trifling surnames as this last came into existence, but its exiguity is surpassed in the case of a prominent French airman who bears the appropriately buoyant name of Brindejonc, perhaps from some ancestor who habitually chewed a straw.
An immense number of our countrymen are simply named from the points of the compass, slightly disguised in Norris, Anglo-Fr. le noreis, [Footnote: The corresponding le surreis is now represented by Surridge.] Sotheran, the southron, and Sterling, for Easterling, a name given to the Hanse merchants. Westray was formerly le westreis. A German was to our ancestors, as he still is to sailors, a Dutchman, whence our name Douch, Ger. deutsch, Old High Ger. tiutisc, which, through Old French tieis, has given Tyas. [Footnote: Tyars, or Tyers, which Bardsley puts with this, seems to be rather Fr. Thiers, Lat. tertius.]
But not every local name is to be taken at its face value. Holland is usually from one of the Lancashire Hollands, and England may be for Mid. Eng. ing-land, the land of Ing (cf. Ingulf, Ingold, etc.), a personal name which is the first element in many place-names, or from ing, a meadow by a stream. Holyland is not Palestine, but the holly-land. Hampshire is often for Hallamshire, a district in Yorkshire. Dane is a variant of Mid. Eng. dene, a valley, the inhabitant of Denmark having given us Dench (Chapter XI) and Dennis (le daneis). Visitors to Margate will remember the valley called the Dane, which stretches from the harbour to St. Peters. Saxon is not racial, but a perversion of sexton (Chapter XVII). Mr. Birdofredum Sawin, commenting on the methods employed in carrying out the great mission of the Anglo-Saxon race, remarks that—
"Saxons would be handy
To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy"