The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-06

ginning with Monmouthshire, in the west, and following the coast around to Suffolk in the east, the Bakers are found in force In every county except Cornwall and, Dorset. a Monmouth leads the counties in its pro- portion of Bakers; Somerset. Sussex Surrey. Devonshire, Essex and Suf- folk follow in the order named As you go north the name falls on, be- comes rare in North England and dis appears altogether within sight of the Cheviot Hills.
 Its origin is the Anglo-Saxon bae- cere. baker" Among the Middle Eng fish forms of both the common noun and the surname are Bakers, Backer. Bacar and Bachare.
 The cognates include the Old Morse bakari, Swedish bagare, Danish bagere, Old High German bacher. Old Saxon bakkeri, Dutch baker, German baeck CT and becker. Here belong the Ger man surnames Becher, Becker, and the Dutch Bekker and Backer.
 The Greek phogo, roast, broil," is primitive cognante and illustrates the radical meaning of the Anglo-Saxo bacan, English bake.
 Baxter, Bagster.
 The surnames Baxter, Bagster and Backster are frequent in the North of England and still more so in Scot land.
 The name Is from the occupative backster. which properly signifies "the female baker" The sufix "ster" is properly feminine and still retains it's proper function in such a word as splnstsr. the feminine of spinner.
 In many nouns denoting occupations the feminine force of the suffix is lost and such nouns became applicable to either sex, c. g., brewster, dyster kemp ster malster, sempster, webster, etc. All these cited here also became surnames. Sometimes new femintnes were formed as songstress, searnstress. for song ster-ess. seam-ster-ess, which thus are doubly feminine.
 Tn these modern days we hear much of the invasion of women into the of fees and occupations of men. These names in the feminine suffix ster are living witnesses of an earlier invasion Of men into those departments of in- dustry that formerly belonged to wo- man. The invaders In many instances retained the usual feminine designa- tion of the occupations just as The women now retain the masculine names of their new vacations. Later masculinity asserted itself in many instances and practically drove the old feminine nouns out of the lan- ruaRe as men had driven women out of the empioyments. The surnames, however, had become hereditary and could not be displaced.
 So baxter or backster as common noun seems to have disappeared from the south of England about 14oo. It stiII survives dialecticaiiy, in the north and in Scotland.
 Tn the Hundred Rolls of 127S, we and the surname le Bacster, ie Bakestere, applied to both sexes One William Mytton, Of Yorkshire. IS described as a bachester in l4s0 and Thomas smith was a baokster at Fres- ton in f622.
 HaRster Is a late variant and has not yet become frequent. See under Baker for additional details.
 Cooke, Cook, Coke.
 Both the surnames Cooke and coke are but archaic variants of the name Cook. which indicates the occupation of those that first received the sur name. -
 Tna Latin coquus became cecus. ID AElfrtc's grammar (about 10Oo A. D.1 we find the Latin cocus glossed py COG. the oldest English orthoErapny or the word. Tn Layamon's "Brut" ldate about 12o5) we find the spelling