“Per Mac atque O, tu veros cognoscis Hibernos,
His duobus ademptis, nullus Hibernus adest.”
Mr. Lower, in his interesting work on personal names,[38] states that among the archives of the corporation of Galway, there is an order dated 1518, declaring that “neither O ne Mac shoulde strutte ne swagger through the streetes of Galway.”
The old Normans prefixed to their names the word Fitz a corruption of fils, derived from the Latin filius; as Fitz-William, “the son of William.” Camden states that there is not a village in Normandy that has not surnamed some family in England. The French names thus introduced from Normandy may generally be known by the prefixes De, Du, De la, St., and by the suffixes Font, Beau, Age, Mont, Bois, Champ, Ville, etc., most of which are parts of the proper names of places; as De Mortimer, St. Maure (Seymour), Montfort, etc. The Russian peasantry employ the termination witz, and the Poles sky in the same sense; as Peter Paulowitz, “Peter, the son of Paul,” and James Petrowsky, “James, the son of Peter.”
In Wales, till a late period, no surnames were used, except Ap, or Son; as Ap Richard, now corrupted into Prichard; Ap Owen, now Bowen; Ap Roderick, now Broderick and Brodie. Not over a century has passed since one might have heard in Wales of such “yard-long-tailed” combinations as Evan-ap-Griffith-ap-David-ap Jenken, and so on to the seventh or eighth generation, the individual carrying his pedigree in his name.[38] To ridicule this absurd species of nomenclature, a wag of the seventeenth century described cheese as being
“Adam’s own cousin-german by its birth,
Ap-Curds-ap-Milk-ap-Cow-ap-Grass-ap-Earth!”
Mr. Lower says that the following anecdote was related to him by a native of Wales: An Englishman riding one dark night among the mountains, heard a cry of distress, uttered apparently by a man who had fallen into a ravine near the highway, and, on listening more attentively, heard the words: “Help, master, help!” in a voice truly Cambrian. “Help! what, who are you?” inquired the traveller. “Jenkin-ap-Griffith-ap-Robin-ap-William-ap-Rees-ap-Evan,” was the reply. “Lazy fellows that ye be,” rejoined the Englishman, putting spurs to his horse, “to lie rolling in that hole, half a dozen of ye; why, in the name of common sense, don’t ye help one another out?”
In the twelfth century it was considered a mark of disgrace to have no surname. A wealthy heiress is represented as saying in respect to her suitor, Robert, natural son of King Henry I, who had but one name: