The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1879-04-10
English Names.


IT is only after the Norman Conquest
that the names which we now regard
as distinctively English first made their
appearance. And, when we come to
examine their forms, we find apparent
~ q curious contradiction. The En-
glish, as we have been told so often of
late years, are q Low Dutch Nation;
but these so-called English names,
John, Thomas. James, Henry, Richard,
Robert and William, are all of them
either Scriptural or else High German
in origin.
How can we account for this pecul-
iarityP Not only were the English
themselves Low Dutch race, but the
Normans who introduced these names
among them were of Scandinavian de-
scent, and therefore even lower Teu-
tons, so to speak, than the English
themselves. The answer to the puzzle
is to be found in universal tendency
OF mankind everywhere to choose for
themselves or their children what seem
to them fine or fashionable names. Ac-
cordingly, wherever Royal family be-
longs to different race from that
which they govern, the Royal names
rapidly spread downward, through the
nobility, to the people at large.
We have an instance of this in the
sudden outburst of German nomencla-
ture which followed the advent to En-
gland of the House of Hanover. The
loyalty of our great grandfathers
flooded the country at once with
Georges, Fredericks, Charlottes and
Sophias. Every young man of quality
was an Ernest, an Augustus. an
Adolphus, or Lewis; every girl was
an Augusta, a Louise, q Caroline, or q
Matilda. The doubtful parsonage
whom the young Squire palmed off on
the family of the Vicar of Wakefield as
lady of distinction from London had
assumed the fashionable designation of
Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia
Skeggs. So common did these Han
overian importations become that a
testy old gentleman in one of Miss
Austen's novels, protesting against
new-fangled finery, wishes all the girls
were plain Sophies-that being evil
IDENTIFY his notion of a good old-fash-
Toned English name. So, too, in our
own time, q perfect crop of Alberts,
Victorias, Alcxandras, Aifreds, Mauds,
Albertas and Eictors, has blossomed
forth through Great Britain and the
colonies, from the seed sown by our
present reigning family.
Now, all our familiar English Chris
tian names are due to an exactly SINH
lar process. William, Richard, Robert,
Henry and the rest were originally
High German designations. The
Frankish conquerors of Gaul took them
in their train to Laon, scissors and
Paris. Before long the Romanized
Celts imposed their language on their
masters; so that French is now Latin,
not TeutOnic tongue. But the peo-
pie, in return, took their names from
the Frankish mobiles, and to this day
the Rom ano-C Celtic inhabitants OF
France call themselves Charles OF
Louis, after the Karls and Hludwigs Of
their Teutonic lords. When the North
men settled in turn among the downs
and dales of Neustria, they, too,
adopted the high German designations
of their feudal superiors at Paris; and
the Hrolfs, Grims, Bious, Thors and
Hacos, whose memory still survives in
Grimonville, Bonneville, Tourville, and
Haconville, gave way to the Roberts,
Walters, Williams, Henrys and Johns,
with whom we are SO familiar in the
story of the Conquest. As soon as the
Norman dynasty was firmly settled on
the English throne. our own ancestors
again borrowed these names from the
| new nobility, and the Godrics and God
gifus of our early history yield place al
once in the chronicles to the intrusive
pranomens of Normandy. Anjou and
Aquitaine. Thus the High Germans
gave these words to the Celtic Romance
people of Gaul, the Celts gave them tt
the Scandinavian Normans, and the
Normans handed them on to the Low
German Cnel;oh - nns.AshsU -l~y~~:sso