page_title: Cornish surnames
section_title: Placenames
hierarchical_section_title: Cornish surnames / Cornish surnames deriving from the Cornish language / Placenames
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo from St Columb Old Cornwall Society archives. With permission of Chairman (myself).
context_page_description: Cornish surnames are surnames used by Cornish people and often derived from the Cornish language such as Jago, Trelawney or Enys. Others have strong roots in the region and many in the UK with names such as Eddy, Stark or Rowe are likely to have Cornish origins. Such surnames for the common people emerged in the Middle Ages, although the nobility probably had surnames much earlier on. Not until the later Middle Ages did it become necessary for a common man to have a surname. Most surnames were fully established throughout Cornwall by the end of the 15th century. Today Cornish surnames can be found throughout the world as part of the Cornish diaspora.
  Due to the linguistic similarity of Cornish, Welsh and Breton, some surnames can derive from any of the three regions.
context_section_description: The phrase Tre, Pol and Pen is used to describe people from, or places in, Cornwall, the United Kingdom. Carew has By Tre, Pol and Pen / You shall know the Cornishmen; however, Camden records the rhyme as By Tre, Ros, Pol, Lan, Caer and Pen / You may know the most Cornishmen.
  Tre – a settlement or homestead
  Ros(e) – heath, moor
  Pol – a pond, lake or well
  Lan – a religious enclosure
  Car – either from karn "tor" or ker "hill-fort"
  Pen(n), Pedn – a hill or headland
  Many Cornish surnames and place names still retain these words as prefixes, such as the names Trelawny or Trevithick and the towns of Polperro, Polkerris and of course Penzance. "Carbines" derives from karn byghan "little tor".
  Caution should be exercised with the derivation of "Car-" surnames as there seems also to be fusion with names containing the word ker "hill-fort", as in "Carvosso" ker fosow "walled hill-fort", a placename found in Ludgvan. There is also karrek "rocky". "Rosdew" is ros du "black moor" and "Ros(e)warne" from ros (g)wern "alder heath" or perhaps "heath by an alder-marsh". "Landry" means lan dre "enclosure of farmhouse or church-house".
  Other examples of place-names used as surnames:
  Gwavas" gwavos "winter residence or bothy"- an area near Penzance and also the surname of a well-known Cornish family (William Gwavas)
  Hammett: "summer bothy"; from Old Cornish hav bot (Cornish: havos, Welsh: hafod). In East Cornwall, -m- was the Anglo-Saxon representation of the Cornish nasal -v-. Place-names: Hammett, Hammett Down in the parish of Quethiock; Great Hammett, Little Hammett in the parish of St Neot, Cornwall.
  Tremethyk: tre medhyk "doctor's residence or farm"
  Trenowden: Tre Renowden "Renowden's farm"; Renowden is the Cornish form of Renaud or Reginald
  Trengrouse: Tre an Grows, "farm at the cross"
  Penprase: Penn Pras "head of the meadow or common pasture"
  Penrose: Penn Ros(e) "head of the moor"
  Nan(s)- surnames- there are many Nan(s)- surnames in Cornwall, "nan(s)" meaning valley- for example Nankervis from "nans" and "kervys", meaning "valley of the deer/stag" and Nankivell/Nancekivell "nans" "Cyfel", "the valley of Cyfel" (Cyfel being a personal name) or perhaps from the Old Welsh/Cornish word "ceffyl" a "horse" . Nanskeval is located on the parish boundaries of St Mawgan in Pydar and St Columb Major.
caption: Nanskeval house at St Mawgan in Pydar, Cornwall. A possible location whence the surname originated
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