The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-03

personal name at all is hrther clear- iy shown by the fact that 1t was general designation for such trenches. entertainments. etc.
 At least live are known in England with such variant names as Grimsdfc, Grimesdike, Grimmesdic, Grimesdstci,, etc. They are of British, Roman. Sax on or Danish constructfon-it matters not which. for the name was due to the native British Cymric. inhabit- ants. It means simply. 'thc strong ditch" The old Bythonic and modern Cymric grym. Cornish sryme, means
 strength" Hence the origin of the name. appropriate enough for this massive earthen rampant, twenty feet high, twenty-four feet thick, and pro- tected on the north by great trench forty feet wide and twenty feet deep.
 The Saxon and the Dane later filed the land and by popular etymoiogy converted the name into aGrimsdyixe. e. etc. The late Scottish geneaIog gists Invented the etioloeicaI myth Of Creme, of whom there is not one iota of historical proof A popular ety. mology later produced Graham's dyke In the far north where the old name was no longer inteillgfble. In Eng land Grim was found in many place. names So that none of its Grimsdic's suffered such aschsnse.
 If the surname was from the old Cymric, 1t would be . nickname in origin. if from the Saxin or Danish. either a nickname or q patronymic de- rived from 1t. The territorial prefix de found in its earliest proyabls oc- currence shows 1t Is neither of these. but that it is of local origin The Saxon -sufilx -han shows the same. Both fsnigiy and name appear thus of English origin as in the case with a number of eminent Scottish families and names.
 The prototheme gray will be found under Gray below.
 The deuterotheme is from the Anglo Saxon ham. "a home, a dweiiinx. .,' whence the English home and hamlet. It Is cognate with the Old Saxsn and old Frisian hem. Middle Dutch heym, Old High German and German helm (also used suffixaliy in place-names. as Neuheim, etc.). old Morse heirnr. "an abode. village" Swedish hem. Dan- jsh hjem. nome" Gothic haims, Ia village" Lithuanian kliemas. Old Prus- sian caymis. Greek kome (both voweis long). ali meaning village"
 Gray. Grey.
 The surname Gray has two-fold or igin as is attested by the Hundred Rolls and other early records. Tn these we hnd le Gray, q nickname de- rived from the color of the hair and de Gray. a surname of local origin.
 As local surname Gray comes from the little village Grai or Gray. near Caen. Normandy, the name of which Is presumably due to some local color of rock or soil or other natural phenom- enon.s H ,.es
 Thence, 1t is supposed, came Anchi- tilius de Graf, a Domesday under-ten- ant in Oxfordshire. The pedigree of the English de Greya however. has not been established beyond the Henry De Grey, to whom the manor of Thurrock, subsequently, known as Grey's Thur rock, in Essex, was given by Richard Occur de Lion.
 At the time of the Hundred Rolls (i2T3) the Greys appear to have out- numbered the Grays. and both spell ings are found th-the articular le as well as with the local de. At that time Gray was especially frequent in Lincolnshire where it is now almost entirely supplanted by Grey, and, vice versa. Grey prevailed in Kent where now Gray is common and Grey almost unknown. The Greys are now found mainly in Northumberland and Durham and the Grays in the aeiires on the eastern and southern coasts of Eng land and also in Scotland where 1t holds the thirty-third place in point of frequency among the surnames of the country.
 While this spelling of the surname is now much more frequent than Grey beth in England and America, the spelling grey greatly predominatess in England for the common adjective, not wtthstanding the fact that Johnson and later Photographers are quite unani- nous in favor of gray.
 Various attempts have been made to set up distinction between the two spellings. Thus Fields Chromotogra- 'phy (isS5) asserts that grey Is com pound of only white and black but that gray is any broken color of cool hue. It is said by others that grey is more delicate or lighter tint and that gray Is a warmer color and has an ad- mixture of red and brown. No distinc- ton, however, holds in current usage nor has aught to do with the variant orthography of the surname.
 Both gray and grey are from the AnElo-Saxon graeg. This is cognRte with the Old Frisian gre, Old and Mid- dle High German grao, German grau, Middle Dutch grau. gra, Dutch graauw, Old Morse grar, Swedish gra, Danish graa and Latin ravus. all meaning "gray."
 Other cognates appear in the Greek charopos, "glaring eyed" Lithuanian ziureti, ''to lock. to glare" Lettish seiruretis, "to Turk, Old -slavonic zireti.