Here may be mentioned a few local surnames which are hard to classify. We have the apparently anatomical Back, Foot, Head, and, in compounds, -side. Back seems to have been used of the region behind a building or dwelling, as it still is at Cambridge. Its plural has given Bax. But it was also a personal name connected with Bacon (Chapter XXIII).
We should expect Foot to mean the base of a hill, but it always occurs in early rolls without a preposition. It may represent in some cases an old personal name of obscure origin, but it is also a nickname with compounds such as Barfoot, Lightfoot. The simple Head, found as Mid. Eng. del heved, is perhaps generally from a shop sign. Fr. Tête, one origin of Tait, Tate, and Ger. Haupt, Kopf, also occur as surnames. As a local suffix -head appears to mean top-end and is generally shortened to -ett, e.g. Birkett (cf. Birkenhead), [Footnote: No doubt sometimes, like Burchett, Burkett, for the personal name Burchard, Anglo-Sax. Burgheard] Brockett (brook), Bromet, Bromhead (broom), Hazlitt (hazel). The same suffix appears to be present in Fossett, from fosse, and Forcett from force, a waterfall (Scand.). Broadhead is a nickname, like Fr. Grossetête and Ger. Breitkopf. The face-value of Evershed is boar's head. Morshead may be the nickname of mine host of the Saracen's Head or may mean the end of the moor. So the names Aked (oak), Blackett, Woodhead may be explained anatomically or geographically according to the choice of the bearer. Perrett, usually a dim. of Peter, may sometimes represent the rather effective old nickname "pear-head."
Side is local in the uncomfortable sounding Akenside (oak), Fearenside (fern), but Heaviside appears to be a nickname. Handyside may mean "gracious manner," from Mid. Eng. side, cognate with Ger. Sitte, custom. See Hendy (Chapter XXII). The simple end survives as Ind or Nind (Chapter III) and in Overend (Chapter XII), Townsend. Edge appears also in the older form Egg, but the frequency of place-names beginning with Edge, e.g. Edgeley, Edgington, Edgworth, etc., suggests that it was also a personal name.
Lynch, a boundary, is cognate with golf-links. The following sounds modern, but refers to people sitting in a hollow among the sand-ridges—
"And are ye in the wont of drawing up wi' a' the gangrel bodies that ye find cowering in a sand-bunker upon the links?"
(Redgauntlet, ch. xi.)
Pitt is found in the compound Bulpitt, no doubt the place where the town bull was kept. It is also the origin of the Kentish names Pett and Pettman (Chapter XVII). Arch refers generally to a bridge. Lastly, there are three words for a corner, viz. Hearne, Herne, Hurne, Horn; Wyke, the same word as Wick, a creek (Chapter XII); and Wray (Scand.). The franklin tell us that "yonge clerkes" desirous of knowledge—
"Seken in every halke and every herne
Particular sciences for to lerne"
(F, 1119).
Wray has become confused with Ray (Chapter III). Its compound thack-wray, the corner where the thatch was stored, has given Thackeray.