Fifth Article.
According to Mabillon, hereditary surnames were first established in Italy in the tenth and eleventh centuries; but Muratori shows that this statement cannot be correct, as in the MSS. of the tenth century in the Ambrosian Library of Milan, no trace can be found of surnames. In the ninth and tenth centuries, to distinguish persons, their profession or country is added to the Christian name, as Johannes Scotus Erigena, Dungallus Scotus, Johannes Presbyter, Johannes Clericus; the dignity is also sometimes added, as Comes Marchio, without stating of what place. In the tenth century, “A, the son of B, the son of C,” was another mode of designation. It is said that the Venetians in the beginning of the eleventh century adopted hereditary surnames, a custom which they borrowed from the Greeks, with whom they carried on a great trade. The Lombards adopted the same practice after the fashion of the Venetians, and accordingly the great family of Monticuli took that name from their castle in Lombardy called Montecuculi, it being on the top of a hill. The great house of Colonna took its name from the town and castle of Columna about the year 1156; and about the same time the noble family of Ursini derived its name from an ancestor nicknamed Ursus, or Orso, on account of his ferocity. Other noble families adopted names from the nickname given to an ancestor, as the illustrious family of Malaspina (the bad thorn) of Pavia, and the family of Malatesta (the bad head). The family of Frangipani, so formidable to the Popes, took that name in the twelfth century. The Rangones of Rome took their name from an estate of theirs in Germany. The Viscontes of Milan were so called from their title of Viscount, which was borne by one of the family. These names appear for the first time in the latter end of the twelfth century. I consider it but proper to observe, that for this information on the subject of Italian surnames we are indebted to the antiquary whose name I have already mentioned, the accurate and laborious Muratori.
To resume the history of surnames in Ireland. We have seen in the last article that in the year 1682 the inferior classes in Ireland, especially in Westmeath and the adjoining counties, were very forward in accommodating themselves to the English usages, particularly in their surnames, “which by all manner of ways they strove to make English or English-like.” This was more particularly the case after the defeat of the Irish at the Boyne and Aughrim, when the Irish chieftains were conquered, and the pride of the Irish people was humbled. At this period, the Irish people, finding that their ancient surnames sounded harshly in the ears of their conquerors and new English masters, found it convenient to reduce them as much as possible to the level of English pronunciation: and they accordingly rejected in almost every instance the O’ and Mac, and made various other changes in their names, so as to give them an English appearance. Thus a gentleman of the O’Neills in Tyrone changed his old name of Felim O’Neill to Felix Neele, as we learn from an epigram written in Latin on the subject by a witty scholar of the name of Conway or Mac Conwy, whose Irish feeling had not been blunted by the misfortunes of the times. The following translation of this epigram is perhaps worth preserving:—
All things has Felix changed, he has changed his name;
Yea, in himself he is no more the same.
Scorning to spend his days where he was reared,
To drag out life among the vulgar herd,
Or trudge his way through bogs in bracks and brogues,
He changed his creed and joined the Saxon rogues
By whom his sires were robbed; he laid aside