The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1891-07-23
A RAMBLE AMONG SURSAMES.
Annual Address Delivered by Rev. J. Wal
ter Daniel Before the Alumni Asso-
ciation of Newberry College,
June 16, 1891.

and exhausted by close and prolonged
application, there is no surer Or more
eficacious restorative than >anble
along the prattling brook, or though
the deep shades of the forest, or over
the hills and through the secluded
valleys. Nature has her own Vts naedi'
cotrir; and to him only who dares tc
penetrate the solitary glens and the
sylvan seclusions OF earth will come the
aroma of wild flowers and the eXhila-
rating voices OF wild natures revels.
Many rare and choice bouquets may
be gathered elsewhere than from hot
houses and we'll cultivated f1oWer~ gar
dens. So, along the by-ways of litera-
ture, and almost unwritten history, the
rambler may gather the sweetest nose
gays of unadorned truth. I therefore
propose RanaNe among ,Surnanees.
But some one, out of harmony with
history, may ask with Juliet.
whats in name?
That which we call rose by any other name
would:smella as sweet"
That is doubtless true. But we must
remember that she had just said:
20 be some other namew
Thus she has left on record the fact
that she really felt, as mere matter of
sentiment, there was not little in the
cognomen by which men and things
are known. There is much in an appel
lation even if it serve no other purpose
than that of distinguishing man from
man and thing from thing. All of US,
indeed, are brought to appreciate its
value when wishing to speak of some
thing or of some person, we awake, as
did Nebuchadnezzar of old, that the
thing is gone from US.
There can, indeed, be no exercise in the
whole business CONSTRUCTION more useful
to the miRd than the analysis of names
in the concentrated light of history and
the conditions out Of which they were
evolved. It brings the careful student
into the ianer sanctuary of thought,
as it relates to the annals Of
nations, for they are but the
cristalization of thought as it stands
connected with the great as well
as the lesser events of the ever receding
past. Surnames are the side-lights of
history, while the appellations which
things and places bear constitute the
foot-iights of the drama of life as it was
played by our rAngso-saxon progenisors.
He who reads history without knowl-
edge of the derivation of names may
stand il the dim light of the outer
court, and even there he may indeed
offer incense, but he who penetrates
within and looks upon the scene under
the resplendent influences of side and
foot-lights beholds it grow incandes-
cent in interest, and be worships and
adores.
Surnames became generally heredi-
tary about the close Of the thirteenth
century, and all kinds of methods were
resorted to in order to establish them.
They were fixed upon US by our ances-
tors from the most casual incidents and
Environments, as we'll as from common
place characteristics and occupations.
1t may, at the first thought, appear in-
credible that surnames should have
been applied so indiferently, bCt when
we consider, that only few centuries
ago the single names which our Anglo
Saxon ancestors bestowed upon their
children were really less than four hun
dred in number, and that only twenty
Or thirty of.these, for each sex, were
in common use-half of all the names
of men being made up of the seven
appellations, John, Henry, Willism,
James, George, Thomas and Richard,
so that>a number Of persons even in
small community would bear the same
name; and when we remember that
these single names gave no hint Of
relationship or family descent, we can
easily see that the necessity for second,
or surname, would speedily arise, and
that the source of supply would be a
matter of secondary Importance.
In this emergency the country from
which one emigrated frequently served
to fasten upon him a surname. Thus
Thomas from Wales very naturally
passed into Thomas Welch. William
from Scotland became William Scott,
Haraid from 'The Land Of the Mid
night Sum-" AMI a descendant he may
have been of the Vikings, inherited the
surname Norman; Louis from France
passed very easily into Lewis French:
Hugh, the German, was very nat
urally called Hugh German or
German. The Osbornes are of
Morse origin and the name meant
The bear Of the GODS bestowed,
doubtless, originally by some viking
upon the healthiest specimen Of his
hardy offspring, and Gilchrist, "The
of Christ is also of Morse de-
scent.
In the eastern section of South Caro-
lima there is no more familiar name
than that of Easterling. Our Anglo
Saxon fore-fathers called emigrants
from the country lying east Of their
little sea-girt island, Easterlings, hence
the term Sterling. Connected, therefore,
with that name we have q most inter-
esting piece of history.
In that far off age when surnames
were made, when every petty earl or
baron had his private mint, when
money was coined by towns as we'll as
by states, we cannot fail to learn even
from romance literature that mel had
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