The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-07-21
THE ORIGIN OF SURNAMES
CONFUSION INCIDENT TO THE EARLY
FLOOD OF SIMILAR NAMES.
The Vast Contribution from Trades
and Ca1lings-PIaces as Prolific
Sources of CognOmens.
London Standard.

! when surnameS first came into regular use
| No doubt the process was a very gradual
one. and its epoch varied in different coun-
| tries but that they were general at COM
paratively early period Of the civilization
| of each nation needs no insisting on. To
] give but a single instance. in the year 1887
| Christianity first became widespread in Po-
| land, and great numbers OF men and wom-
Ell were baptized at one time. To simplify
and expedite matters with so large con-
course. ii became the custom of the officiaI-
ing clergy TO bestow the same name upon
whole patches of people who came to be
admitted into the church. At one baptism,
/ for example, the name Peter was conferred
upon all the men and Catherine upon all
the women. On another occasion they
would all be Pauls and Margarets and so
on.
Great confusion must inevitably have
been the result. and the rapid adoption of
q system OF patronymics was the only
cape from the difficulty The origin of our
word surname, formerly occasionally spelt
sirname," is often supposed to be sire
name" and it was indeed only in the ma
ture of things that the earliest kind of dis
tinguishing second name should have ref
erence to the parent. Our English Robin
as common. ancient. and characteristic as
| the Scotch Macs and the Irish Os, which
mean the same thing The Mac. it need
| scarcely be said, though often considered
| essentially Scotch, is common TO the two
nations, as witness the well-known dog
| gerel-
| BY Mac and o., you'll always know
| True Irishmen, they say;
| But If they lack both O and Mac
| No Irishmen are they.
| is more properly grandson. The Norman
| equivalent is "Fitz," a corruption of 'fls'
| The Russian termination WITT signifies
the same word, as also the Polish sky"
| With regard to the Welsh ''ap," which also
| means son, matters stand rather differ
emily. for in this case ''ap' is a separate
word, and is not incorporated in the whole
| name except as d corruption; also il may
be introduced an indefinite number of times
! In the same appellation. so that a Welsh
surname can convey a complete genealogy
In civilization. 1t is common joke to
! laugh at a Welshman for his long list of
ancestors with the connecting APPS"
TRIALS OF WELSHMEN.
There is an old story Of an Englishman.
foreign to the principality and its ways,
riding after dark near a ravine from which
issued a cry for assistance from one who
had fallen in.
who's there?" shouted the Englishman.
jenkins ap Griffith ap William ap :
Rees ap Evan ap Robin" came the re-
tply.
Lazy fellows, Half dozen of you.
Why can't you help each other out?' ex-
claimed the Englishman. ignorant of the
fact that he was addressing but one man.
The corruption of the "ap has led to a
| number of common notifications of old
| Welsh names. Price for ap-Rhys, Pritch-
ard for ap-Richard, Powell for ap-Howell;
| Perry. as also (the 3D. being similar to the
''p') Bevan, Barry, and the like. Another
| Welsh form of family name-that which
simply puts the Christian name into the
| genitive case-has contributed many of our
| commonest surnames, as Jones' i. e., Johns,
Harry s-Harris. Williams. Hughes. etc.
The roots of our family names, of our
| families themselves, have sprung from
| many nations and many tongues. There
are well-niSh innumerable cases in Eng
land of surnames which point Enthusiastically
! TO the foreign country, and frequently, too,
| actual neighbOrhOod or town even, from
which the family originally migrated,
though no other kind of record may exist
TO prove that. in far-off time. they came
| from over the seas OF the original Anglo
Saxon there are some few survvals Some
| can be traced in the termination ing,
| which among Teutonic people signifed off
spring" Browning and Whiting in this way
would mean the dark fair children.
| Place names from Normandy and Brit
tany very common, as might be sup
posed. Darcy, Nevill, Ferrers, Devereux,
/ m. V. L
Aubn. Lascelle. Morley-all these and
many others can readily be referred to their
| original birthpaces. In others, through
! corruption of the word the locality is not
| so easy to trace. though still there-as, for
| example, the name st. Maure which, by
process of time. has come to stand as Sey-
| mOur: NaloinS, which we now know only as
| Valance etc. Some of our names, again,
have a Netherland birthplace. as Gaunt.
which was originally Client; St Ieger, and
| Bridges. which last is corruption, In all
| prObab iity, of BrugeS
IDENTIFIED BY PLACES.
1t needs no pointing out how easily place
names can become family names. To dis
tinguish an individual by the name of his
home. birthplace or residence was a ready
means Of securing his identity. In rural dis
tricts and among a population that con-
tinued for generations in the same home
steads, place names would be given from
trivial features of locality, Wood and
| Hill and Lane and Dale. In this connection
we can find a number Of ancient words for
country objects which have long ago be-
come obsolete and forgotten. "Cowdray,
| for instance, in olden days signfied a grove
! of hazel; Garth" is old English for yard,
| "Hithe'' for haven, Garnet for gran
ary, SHAW for a small wood. The COM
mon surname Head is really a place name,
| head being a frequent term for a prOmon-
| tory or cape as Beachy Head. The suffix
! bee" as in Ashbee. Holmbee. is a sur
! vival of the Danish by a habitation-
The name Dean is not from the church
dignitary, but signifies a hollow or dell.
| whence we get Dean Forest and Arden.
| Another word still in common use in Ger
tain parts of England for the same thing is
bottom" Higginbottom thus means the
| dell where the 'hicken' or mountain ash
| hourished. Beckett" is a little brook, still
| called a beck in the north; boys is the
English corruption of 'bois. wood.
! "Donne" means down, Holt a grove
| and Hurst copse. stead OF course,
is a farmhouse and its surroundings.
| Lynne is a pool Law" once meant hill
| and Homer" a corner. Townsend" would
| signify "the towns end" Brock" was the
| old term for a badger-hence BroxbOurne
and other similar titles, while 'gos" as in
| Gosford add other examples, merely re-
| ferred 10 a goose.
Ii is needless to say that vast majority
| of English surnames among which are to
| be numbered our very cOmmonest are de-
| rived from trades and calings-Smith and
! Baker, and Turner, and Taylor and others
| past enumerating. Here. too. we may trace
| ancient words which have since completely
dropped out. "Chaucer' and "Sutor" are
| 10 US perfectly meaningless but long
ago they both signiied a shoemaker. A
| Pitcher formerly made great coats a
| Reader" matched buildings with reeds
| or straw "Latimer" was a writer OF
Latin for legal and such like purposes
An cartwright was the maker Of the
| great meal chests. or "arks." which were
formerly essential pieces of household fur
| niture. Tucker was a fuller "Lorimer"
| saddler 'Launder'' or Lavender a
| washerman, "Tupper" made tubs "Jenner"