But many apparent nicknames are products of folk-etymology. Coward is for cowherd, Salmon for Salomon, Bone for Boon (v.s.), Dedman is a corruption of Debenham. Playfair means play-fellow, from an old word connected with the verb to fare, to journey. Patch may sometimes have meant a jester, from his parti-coloured garments, but is more often a variant of Pash, Pask, a baptismal name given to children christened at Easter, Old Fr. Pasque (Pâque). Easter eggs are still called pash, pace, or paste eggs in the north of England. Blood is a Welsh name, son of Lud; cf. Bevan, Bowen, etc. Coffin is Fr. Chauvin, a derivative of Lat. calvus, bald. It has a variant Caffyn, the name of a famous cricketer. Dance, for Dans, is related to Daniel as Wills is to William. In the same way Pearce comes from Peter or Pierre. The older form of the name Pearce was borne by the most famous of ploughmen, as it still is by the most famous of soapmakers. Names such as Bull, Peacock, Greenman, are sometimes from shop or tavern signs. It is noteworthy that, as a surname, we often find the old form Pocock. The Green Man, still a common tavern sign, represented a kind of "wild man of the woods"; cf. the Ger. sign Zum wilden Mann.
In these remarks on surnames I have only tried to show in general terms how they come into existence, "hoping to incur no offence herein with any person, when I protest in all sincerity, that I purpose nothing less than to wrong any whosoever" (Camden). Many names are susceptible of alternative explanations, and it requires a genealogist, and generally some imagination, to decide to which particular source a given family can be traced. The two arguments sometimes drawn from armorial bearings and medieval Latin forms are worthless. Names existed before escutcheons and devices, and these are often mere puns, e.g., the Onslow family, of local origin, from Onslow in Shropshire, has adopted the excellent motto festina lente, "on slow." The famous name Sacheverell is latinised as De Saltu Capellæ, of the kid's leap. This agrees with the oldest form Sau-cheverell, which is probably from a French place called Sault-Chevreuil du Tronchet (Manche). The fact that Napier of Merchiston had for his device n'a pier, no equal, does not make it any the less true that his ancestors were, like Perkin Warbeck's parents, "really, respectable people" (see p. [57]).
Dr Brewer, in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, says of his own name—
"This name, which exists in France as Bruhière and Brugière, is not derived from the Saxon briwan (to brew), but the French bruyère (heath), and is about tantamount to the German Plantagenet (broom plant)."
A "German" Plantagenet should overawe even a Norfolk Howard. A more interesting identification, and a true one, is that of the name of the great engineer Telford, a corruption of Telfer, with Taillefer, the "iron cleaver."
DAFT
A curious feature in nomenclature is the local character of some nicknames. We have an instance of this in the Notts name Daft[141]—
"A Daft might have played in the Notts County Eleven in 1273 as well as in 1886."
(Bardsley.)
The only occurrence of the name in the Hundred Rolls for the year 1273 is in the county of Notts.