The curious-looking name Earwaker is no doubt the same as an Eueruacer (Everwacer), in Domesday, from evor, boar, and wacar, watchful, and it is of interest as supplying a missing link in the study of Old German names. For the Old German name corresponding to this appears as Eburacer, and while some other German writers have taken the ending to be acer (Eng. acre), Foerstemann has, rightly as it is proved, suggested that it is a contraction of wacer. Similarly the ancient name Odoacer, of the king of the Heruli, is proved by corresponding Anglo-Saxon names, Edwaker in a charter of manumission at Exeter, and Edwacer on coins minted at Norwich (A.S. ed = O.H.G. od), to be properly Odwacer. From this A.S. Edwaker may be our name Eddiker; and some others of our names, as Goodacre and Hardacre, may represent ancient names not yet turned up.[56] The second part of the compound, wacer (whence our Waker), is itself a very ancient stem, being found on the one hand in the Wacer(ingas), among the early Saxon settlers, and on the other in the name Vacir, probably Frankish, on Roman pottery.
SHAWKEY, CHALKEY, CHALK, CAULK, KELK, CHALKLEN, CALKING, CHALKER, CHAUCER.
We may take it that our name Shawkey (Shalkey) is the same as an A.S. Scealc, p. [101], and as an O.G. Scalco, from scalc, servant. And the question is, whether our names Caulk, Chalk, and Chalkey, corresponding with an A.S. Cealca (found apparently in Cealcan gemero), and our name Kelk, corresponding with an A.S. Celc, p. [98], may not be forms of the same name without the initial s. Or whether they may be, as I before suggested, from the tribe-name of the Chauci or Cauci, one of the peoples included in the Frankish confederation. Of such a stem, however, there is not any trace in the Altdeutsches Namenbuch, which one might rather expect to be the case, seeing how fully Old Frankish names are therein represented. However, I am not able to come to any definite conclusion respecting this stem, which the forms above cited show to be an ancient one. The French names Chaussy, Chaussée, Cauche, Cauchy, seem to be in correspondence, as also Chaussier, comparing with Chaucer, which, as a softened form, I think may have come through the Normans.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] Kemble explains Cnebba as "he that hath a beak," which would seem to make it a sobriquet. But it certainly seems more reasonable to bring it into an established stem.
[55] This name might also be deduced from another stem.
[56] Unless, as seems possible, Goodacre may represent the Old German name Gundachar.
CHAPTER X
NAMES WHICH ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM.