Very few surnames are taken, in any language, from the names of rivers. This is quite natural, for just as the man who lived on a hill became known as Hill, Peake, etc., and not as Skiddaw or Wrekin, so the man who lived by the waterside would be known as Bywater, Rivers, etc. No Londoner talks of going on the Thames, and the country-dweller also usually refers to his local stream as the river or the water, and not by its geographical name. Another reason for the absence of such surnames is probably to be found in the fact that our river (and mountain) names are almost exclusively Celtic, and had no connotation for the English population. We have many apparent river names, but most of them are susceptible of another explanation. Dee may be for Day as Deakin is for Dakin, i.e. David, Derwent looks like Darwin (Chapter VII) or the local Darwen with excrescent -t (Chapter III), Humber is Humbert, a French name corresponding to the Anglo-Sax, Hunbeorht, Medway may be merely "mid-way," and Trent is a place in Somerset. This view as to river surnames is supported by the fact that we do not appear to have a single mountain surname, the apparent exception, Snowdon, being for Snowden (see den, Dean, Dene, Denne). [Footnote: But see my Surnames, Chapter XVI.]
Among names for streams we have Beck, [Footnote: The simple Beck is generally a German name of modern introduction (see pecch).] cognate with Ger. Bach; Bourne, [Footnote: Distinct from bourne, a boundary, Fr. borne.] or Burn, cognate with Ger. Brunnen; Brook, related to break; Crick, a creek; Fleet, a creek, cognate with Flood; and Syke, a trench or rill. In Beckett and Brockett the suffix is head (Chapter XIII). Troutbeck, Birkbeck explain themselves. In Colbeck we have cold, and Holbrook contains hollow, but in some names -brook has been substituted for -borough, -burgh. We find Brook latinized as Torrens. Aborn is for atte bourne, and there are probably many places called Blackburn and Otterburn.
Firth, an estuary, cognate with fjord, often becomes Frith, but this surname usually comes from frith, a park or game preserve (Chapter XIII).
Another word for a creek, wick or wick (Scand.), cannot be distinguished from wick, a settlement. Pond, a doublet of Pound (Chapter XIII), means a piece of water enclosed by a dam, while natural sheets of water are Lake, or Lack, not limited originally to a large expanse, Mere, whence Mears and such compounds as Cranmer (crane), Bulmer (bull), etc., and Pool, also spelt Pull and Pole. We have compounds of the latter in Poulton (Chapter I), Claypole, and Glasspool.
In Kent a small pond is called Sole, whence Nethersole. The bank of a river or lake was called Over, cognate with Ger. Ufer, whence Overend, Overall (see below), Overbury, Overland. The surname Shore, for atte shore, may refer to the sea-shore, but the word sewer was once regularly so pronounced and the name was applied to large drains in the fen country (cf. Gott, Water, Chapter XIII). Beach is a word of late appearance and doubtful origin, and as a surname is usually identical with Beech.
Spits of land by the waterside were called Hook (cf. Hook of Holland and Sandy Hook) and Hoe or Hoo, as in Plymouth Hoe, or the Hundred of Hoo, between the Thames and the Medway. From Hook comes Hooker, where it does not mean a maker of hooks, while Homan and Hooman sometimes belong to the second. Alluvial land by a stream was called halgh, haugh, whence sometimes Hawes. Its dative case gives Hale and Heal. These often become -hall, -all, in place-names. Compounds are Greenhalgh, Greenall and Featherstonehaugh, perhaps our longest surname.
Ing, a low-lying meadow, Mid. Eng. eng, survives in Greening, Fenning, Wilding, and probably sometimes in England (Chapter XI). But Inge and Ings, the latter the name of one of the Cato Street conspirators, also represent an Anglo-Saxon personal name. Cf. Ingall and Ingle, from Ingwulf, or Ingold, whence Ingoldsby.
Ey, an island, [Footnote: Isle of Sheppey, Mersea Island, etc, are pleonasms.]survives as the last element of many names, and is not always to be distinguished from hey (hay, Settlements, Chapter III) and ley. Bill Nye's ancestor lived atten ey (Chapter III). Dowdney or Dudeney has been explained from the Anglo-Saxon name Duda, but it more probably represents the very common French name Dieudonné, corresponding to Lat. Deodatus. In the north a river island was commonly called Holm (Scand.), also pronounced Home, Hulme, and Hume, in compounds easily confused with -ham, e.g. Durham was once Dun-holmr, hill island. The very common Holmes is probably in most cases a tree-name (Chapter XII). In Chisholm the first element may mean pebble; cf. Chesil Beach. The names Bent, whence Broadbent, and Crook probably also belong sometimes to the river, but may have arisen from a turn in a road or valley. But Bent was also applied to a tract covered with bents, or rushes, and Crook is generally a nickname (Chapter XXII). Lastly, the crossing of the unbridged stream has given us Ford or Forth whence Stratford, Strafford (street), Stanford, Stamford, Staniforth (stone), etc. The alternative name was Wade, whence the compound Grimwade. The cognate wath (Scand.) has been confused with with (Scand.), a wood, whence the name Wythe and the compound Askwith or Asquith. Both -wath and –with have been often replaced by -worth and -wood.