The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1901-02-27

named Caernavron, and the Welsh a,
cepted him as their future king an
called him the prince of Wales. an
that is how the title started. lie wa
King Edward III.
NOW, there was another Welsh wa,
OF distinguishing the son from Tn,
father. The little word " Ap mean
son of, and it used to be written JOIN
ap Jones, but in course of time tn,
little middle word was dropped. 1t i,
little singular that away back in The
tenth century the Welsh people who
had been lighting each other in civi
wars for two hundred years at Inst
made friends and chose David ar
Howell for their king, and he had a
son named Evan. He was good man,
and his subjects always called hlm
Howell Da-IIowell the good. That
must bcIour Evan of The Atlanta Con
stltutlon. lie has just been hid out all
these years. l see that the chamber
OF commerce gave banquet yesterday
and Evan Howell rcspvn, led to the tnast
Good Fellowship" That suited HIM
exactly, L know, and had | been there
l would have told how his great ances
tor was called the "Dan . and was the
last king of Wales. l called him over
the telephone this morning and said
"llello Da." and he answered "IIeren'
Now, about Bill II,gginbotham.
That is old Anglo Saxon, and means
u mountain ark. The old name was
hlcken. Probably the old ancestor took
his name from on ash tree that shaded
his house. Names were scarce. and
people took their surnamcs from OBJ
Jects OF nature, such as hill, fountain,
dale, peak, pine, plant, oaks, chestnut,
grub, twigs, branch, water, pool, moon,
star, cloud and so forth; or from their
occupations as baker, farmer, carpen-
Ter, mason, millei. gardener, granger
and all OF the family Of smiths who
were the smiters of iron and silver and
gold. All who were detailed to watch
Tor an invading enemy were called
smlters or smiths. John Smith was
originally John, the smiter, Captain
John Smith was an illustrious type of
mat class. When names were too
long to pronounce readily, they were
shortened up. Peter, who lived at the
Seven Oaks, was called Peter Svnoaks;
then Peter Snooks, and that's how our
Atlanta friend came by his name.
The name Coward was originally
COW herd-a herder of cattle-and was
not improved by the change. The
adJntant of our brigade was named
Coward, and the army had no braver
soldier. lie lost an arm ut Chicka-
hominy. He always signed his name
a. Coward, adj't gcn'l, and being asked
why he did not sign his full name,
said Well, my first name, unfortu.
nately, is Adam, and it is not quite so
bad to be coward as it is to he adam
coward.
a few centuries ago every civilized
nation had to adopt prefix or a sut,ix
so as TO prevent the confusion of names.
The English added son to most of their
names, as Johnson, Williamson, Jack
son, Thompson, etc. The Scotch pre-
lXed with Mac. The Irish with Mac
Or Nc for son and O for grandson.
The French took De or Du. The Nor
mans used Fitz or fills (from Latin of
Illus, a SOM The Russians took witch
from the same word.
Then there are many nicknames to
he accounted for, such as Bob, Bill |
Dick, Jack, Jim, Sally, Polly, Betsy,
etc. l don't know how these started
but some of them came oat the collier.
les OF England and The quarries of |
Wales, for every miner has nick
name of Nosey, Soaker, Shanks, Jig
ger or something easy to call. l had |
a schoolmate whose name was Melville |
Young. One day he was trying to do
a sum in Fellowship at the blackboard |
and wrote down what he intended
Tod but it looked like tod, and the |
teacher said, "What do you mean by
tod ~ That was enough for the boys. |
They began to call him Tod, and they |
never quit, and he was known as Tod |
Young all his after life.
But the girls are not so much inter
ested in names, for almost every girl
expects TO change hers when the right
young man comes along. She Is not
Obliged to marry man named Cruik-
shanks or Snoozlcfanter or Hogg, but
I've known Them to do it, and they
did very well. BILL ARP.
L. Sin my last letter the types
made mo to say 26G 900 Confederate
soldiers. 1t should be 7G6, ,OOO-all
told from the beginning to the emil Of
the war. Is. A.
A.ns