“It were to me a great shame,
To have a lord withouten his twa name;”
whereupon the King, to remedy the fatal defect, gave him the surname of Fitz-Roy.
The early Saxons had as a rule but one name, which was always significant of some outward or other peculiarity, and was doubtless often given to children with the belief or hope that the meaning of the word might exert some mysterious influence on the bearer’s future destiny. Ere long, however, surnames came into fashion with them, too, and were derived from the endless variety of personal qualities, natural objects, occupations and pursuits, social relations, localities, offices, and even from different parts of the body (as Cheek, Beard, Shanks), from sports (as Ball, Bowles, Whist, Fairplay), from measures (as Gill, Peck), and from diseases (as Cramp, Toothacher, Akenside), from a conjunction (as And), and from coins (as Penny, Twopenny, Moneypenny, Grote, Pound). On a person with the first of these pecuniary names, the following epitaph was written:
“Reader, if cash thou art in want of any,
Dig four feet deep, and thou shalt find a Penny.”
The prefix atte or at softened to a or an has helped to form many names. A man living on a moor would call himself Attemoor or Atmoor; if near a gate, Attegate or Agate. John Atten Oak was oftentimes condensed into John-a-Noke, and then into John Noaks. Nye is thus a corruption of Atten-Eye, “at the island.” From Applegarth, “an orchard,” are derived Applegate and Appleton. Beckett means literally “a little brook”; Chase, “a forest”; Cobb, “a harbor”; Craig, “a rock” or “precipice”; Holme and Holmes, “a meadow surrounded with water”; Holt, “a grove”; Holloway, “a deep road between high banks”; Lee and Leigh, “a pasture”; Peel, “a pool”; Slack, “low ground,” or “a pass between mountains.” The root of the ubiquitous Smith is smitan, “to smite,” and like the Latin faber, the name was originally given to all “smiters,” whether workers in wood or workers in metal. Soldiers were sometimes called War-Smiths. Among all the forty thousand English surnames, no one has been more prolific of jests and witticisms, especially John Smith, which, from its commonness, is practically no name, though the rural Englishman seems to have thought otherwise, who directed a letter, “For Mr. John Smith, London,—with spead.” As there are hundreds of John Smiths in the London Directory, the letter might as well have been addressed to the Man in the Moon. There is a well known story of a wag at a crowded theatre, who secured a seat by shouting “Mr. Smith’s house is on fire!”
Many words obsolete in English are preserved in surnames; as Sutor, which is the Latin and Saxon for “shoemaker;” Latimer, from Latiner, “a writer of Latin;” Chaucer, from chausier, “a hose-maker”; Lorimer, “a maker of spurs, and bits for bridles.” An Arkwright was “a maker of meal-chests”; Lander is from lavandier, “a washerwoman”; Banister, is “a keeper of the Bath”; Crocker, “a potter”; Shearman, “one who shears worsteds, etc.”; Sanger, “a singer”; Notman, “a cowherd.” Generally all names ending in er indicate some employment or profession. Such names as Baxter and Brewster are the feminine of Baker and Brewer, as is Webster of Webber, or “weaver,” which shows that these trades were anciently carried on by women, and that when men began to follow them, they retained for some time the feminine names, as do men-milliners now. The name of the poet Whittier, however, is a corruption of “White church.” The termination ward indicates “a keeper”; as Hayward, “keeper of the town cattle”; Woodward, “forest-keeper.” Rush is “subtle”; Bonner, “kind”; Eldridge, “wild,” “ghastly.” Numerous surnames are derived from the chase, showing the passion of the early English for field-sports; as Bowyer, Fowler, Fletcher (from the French flèche, an arrow), Hartman. Tod is the Scotch word for fox; hence Todhunter (the name of a celebrated mathematician who died recently at Cambridge, Eng.) is “a fox-hunter.” Among the names derived from offices are Chalmers, “a chamberlain;” Foster, “a nourisher,” one who had care of the children of great men; and Franklin, a person next in dignity to an esquire. Palmer comes from the professional wanderer of the ancient time, who always carried a palm-branch as a pledge of his having visited the Holy Land. Landseer was a “land-steward,” or bailiff.
Some names, denoting mean occupations which only bondmen would follow, have been disguised by a new orthography, “mollified ridiculously,” as Camden says, “lest their bearers should seem vilified by them.” Carter, Tailor, and Smith have been metamorphosed into Carteer, Tayleure, Smyth, Smeeth, or Smythe. Mr. Hayward, ashamed of being called “cattle-keeper,” has transformed himself into Howard, as if he hoped to smuggle himself among the connections of the greatest of ducal houses. Dean Swift, speaking of these devices to change the vulgar into the genteel by the change of a letter, says: “I know a citizen who adds or alters a letter in his name with every plum he acquires; he now wants only the change of a vowel to be allied to a sovereign prince, Farnese, in Italy, and that perhaps he may contrive to be done by a mistake of the graver upon his tombstone.” Mr. Lower tells a good story of a Tailor who had been thus dignified, and who haughtily demanded of a farmer the name of his dog. The answer was: “Why, sir, his proper name is Jowler, but since he’s a consequential kind of puppy, we calls him Jowleure!”
Of the Saxon patronymics the most fruitful is son, with which is mingled inseparably the genitive letter s. Thus from the Christian name Adam are derived Adams, Adamson, Addison; from Andrew, Andrews, Anderson; from Dennis, Dennison, Jennison; from Henry, Henrison, Harris, Harrison, Hawes, Hawkins; from John, Johns, Jones, Jonson, Johnson, Jennings, Jenks, Jenkinson, Jackson, Jockins; from William, Williamson, Williams, Wilson, Wills, Wilkins, Wilkinson, Wells; from Walter, Watson, Watts, Watkins. From the Old Saxon derivation ing, signifying offspring, it is said that we get over two thousand proper names. Browning and Whiting are dark and white offspring. The termination kin, derived from the ancient cyn, meaning “race,” is found in a yet greater number of names; while from the termination ock (as in Pollock, from Paul, and contracted into Polk) are obtained comparatively few names. Scandinavian mythology has contributed a few names to our English list. From Thor we have Thoresby, Thursby, and Thurlow.