The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1906-04-19
WHENCE NAMES COME
THE SURPRISING CHANGES THAT
TIME t.AS WROUGHT.
Who Would Think, For Instance,
That the Name Thomas Whftehorse
Originally Indicated .0Thomas ut
the Sign of the White Rorse:,,

That the Name Thomas WhftehOrse
| Originally Indicated "Thomas at
the Sign of the White Rorsc.,'
| Considering the surprising changes
| that many names have undergone. says
| Miss Laura Alton Payne in the indie
| pendent, the almost universal lack of
| knowledge concerning their origin is
| not to be wondered at What is there
| in peter Shocks to suggest to the
| uninitiated that originally it was ..Pe-
| ter at the Seven Oaks?" Though
"Thomas Whitehorse" suggests the
| American Indian custom in names,
originally it was Thomas at the White
| Horse" or Thomas at the Sign of the
! White Horse" "a tavern). Sidney is
| corruption of St Denys, Sinclair of st.
| Clair, Seymour of st. Maur, Janeway
| of Genoa, Curtis of courteous Armi-
| tage Of hermitage, Spark of Sparrow
hawk. Emerson and America had the
same origin-Almeric, an old Norman
| name, AmeriGo being the Italianized
| form.
Names, like things, are not always
not "beers" and berry" but corrup-
ton Of borough" often written
BURY and berry"
| In the beginning a single personal
name sufficed For awhile no two per-
sons bore the same name, but as a
stock Of names accumulated repeti-
| tons became common, and as the pop
ulaton of the world increased distinc-
tive names became necessary hence
we read of John the Baptist and John
| the Disciple, Darius Hystaspis and Al
| exander the Great, Joshua. son of Nun,
| and Simon Barjonas-"Simo son of
Jonas"
Surnames were first used in France,
becoming general there during the lat
ter part of the tenth or the fore part of
the eleventh century. They were used
hereditarily to some extent, however,
prior to that time. They were intro
| duced into England at the Norman
conquest in the year 1866, but it re-
quired two or three centuries to estab-
lish the body of our nomenclature on
| a fixed basis During that time sur
names became general throughout the
British isles except in Wales, in some
parts of which they are unknown to
this day.
Surnames are now general in all
civilized countries, l believe, except
Turkey In England alone there are
from 10000 to $4,000 existing sur
names.
Surnames have been drawn from ev-
cry available source-personal names,
location, occupation, deeds of prowess,
mental, moral and physical attributes,
terms of relationship, the human body,
farm and household articles, buildings,
foods and drinks, modes of travel, ma
lions and laws, customs and religions,
geographical terms, weather and sea-
sons, months and days, measures and
values, the joys and ills of life, tie
ANIMAL mineral and vegetable king
dom and even from the kingdom Of
heaven. The use of nicknames and
compound terms gave an almost in
exhaustible source. Even oaths be-
came embodied, as in Pardoe, from par
Dieu.
In most countries it is customary
for the wife to take her husbands
name, but in some European countries
it is not unusual for the husband to
append the wife's name, particularly
when it is more honorable than his
own. Hyphenated names and the
wife's retention of her maiden name
for middle name are customs grow
ing in favor in the United States and
Great Britain.
| Among the earliest names introduced
by the conquest were found Serl, Drew,
Bryce, Harvey, Arnold c'ern"-eagle),
ALFRED (now known as Albert and ALL
bright, Almeric, Ingelram, Ebrardus
(Everard, Warm (Guerin, now War
| rem Two, Hamon (Hammond), and
| Payn Originally Pagan. After their
adoption as surnames the most of these
became obsolete as personal names.
! The most popular personal names
since the Domesday Book recorded
| them have been John and William, but
| their derivatives are too numerous to
mention here Roger, Robert and Rich
ard took double nickname in III and
D; hence Hodge and Dodge, Hobbs
and Dobbs, Hicks and Dicks, with the
rougher forms of the last-Higgs and
Diggs, and even Hitch, giving rise to
/ Dickens, Hitchcock and Higginson.
Diminutive and other affixes served
/ an important part in the origin of sur
names from personal names. The An
| glo-Saxon kim and "cock" and ing
are represented in jenkins, ''little
| john" Hitchcock, ''little Richard"
and Browning, little Brown the
Norman "ot'' and "et," in Eliot, little
| Elias" and Emmett, little Emma"
sometimes 'lot'' and 'let;;" Hamlet
little Hamon'0; the French "on' and
"en'' in Marion and Dickens.
Many prefixes were used The Celtic
"Mac' or "M'' Of the Scotch; NC of
the Irish; "Map," cap" or "P'' of the
Welsh, and the Norman "Fitz'' Uatin
fils), signify ''son" or "son Of" and the
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