III
THE ROMANCE OF NAMES—BY ERNEST WEEKLEY
This companion volume to The Romance of Words is no less diverting. It is just one branch of the hunt, and perhaps the most interesting one to start with. We find mythical etymologies like that of the Napiers of Merchiston who took the motto n'a pier ("has no equal"), whereas their ancestors were the servants who looked after the napery. Not all the Seymours are St Maurs. Some of them were once Seamers—i.e. tailors.
The ff in ffrench and ffoulkes is sheer affectation, as the ff is merely the method of indicating the capital letter in early documents. The telescoping of long names leads to trouble among the ignorant. Auchinleck, Affleck; Postlethwaite, Posnett; Wolstenholme, Woosnam are good examples of this.
It is well to be reminded, for the sake of those who bear "hideous names," of the following facts. Matthew Arnold in his essay on the Function of Criticism at the Present Time is moved by the case of Wragg to this:
"What a touch of grossness in our race, what an original shortcoming in the more delicate spiritual perceptions, is shown by the natural growth amongst us of such hideous names—Higginbottom, Stiggins, Bugg."
As a matter of fact, Wragg is the first element in the heroic Ragnar; Bugg is the Anglo-Saxon Bucga; Stiggins is the illustrious Stigand, and Higginbottom is purely geographical.
We owe a great many of our names in disguise to the paladins and of course to the Bible. Pankhurst is Pentecost, Chubb and Jupp are derived from Job, Cradock from Caradoc (Caractacus), Maddox from Madoc, Izzard from Isolt, Rome from Roland.
Metronymics, as Professor Weekley hastens to assure us, are not always a sign of moral depravity: in mediæval times the children of a widow often assumed the mother's name.
From Matilda we get Tillotson, from Beatrice Betts, from Isabel Ibbotson, from Avice Haweis.