The Romance of Names Part 16

But not every local name is to be taken at its face value. Holland is usually from one of the Lancas.h.i.+re Hollands, and England may be for Mid. Eng. ing-land, the land of Ing (cf. Ingulf, Ingold, etc.), a personal name which is the first element in many place-names, or from ing, a meadow by a stream. Holyland is not Palestine, but the holly-land. Hamps.h.i.+re is often for Hallams.h.i.+re, a district in Yorks.h.i.+re. Dane is a variant of Mid. Eng. dene, a valley, the inhabitant of Denmark having given us Dench (Chapter XI) and Dennis (le daneis). Visitors to Margate will remember the valley called the Dane, which stretches from the harbour to St. Peters. Saxon is not racial, but a perversion of s.e.xton (Chapter XVII). Mr. Birdofredum Sawin, commenting on the methods employed in carrying out the great mission of the Anglo-Saxon race, remarks that--

"Saxons would be handy To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy"

(Lowell, Biglow Papers).

The name c.o.c.kayne was perhaps first given derisively to a sybarite--

"Paris est pour le riche un pays de Cocagne" (Boileau),

but it may be an imitative form of c.o.ken in Durham.

Names such as Morris, i.e. Moorish, or Sarson, i.e. Saracen (but also for Sara-son), are rather nicknames, due to complexion or to an ancestor who was mine host of the Saracen's Head. Moor is sometimes of similar origin. Russ, like Rush, is one of the many forms of Fr.

roux, red-complexioned (Chapter II). Pole is for Pool, the native of Poland being called Polack--

"He smote the sledded Polack on the ice" (Hamlet, I. i).

But the name Pollock is local (Renfrews.h.i.+re).

COUNTIES AND TOWNS

As a rule it will be found that, while most of our counties have given family names, sometimes corrupted, e.g. Lankshear, Willsher, Cant, Chant, for Kent, with which we may compare Anguish for Angus, the larger towns are rather poorly represented, the movement having always been from country to town, and the smaller spot serving for more exact description. An exception is Bristow (Bristol), Mid. Eng. brig-stow, the place on the bridge, the great commercial city of the west from which so many medieval seamen hailed; but the name is sometimes from Burstow (Surrey), and there were possibly smaller places called by so natural a name, just as the name Bradford, i.e. broad ford, may come from a great many other places than the Yorks.h.i.+re wool town. Rossiter is generally for Rochester, but also for Wroxeter (Salop); Coggeshall is well disguised as c.o.xall, Barnstaple as Bastable, Maidstone as Mayston, Stockport as Stopford. On the other hand, there is not a village of any antiquity but has, or once had, a representative among surnames.

NAMES PRECEDED BY DE

The provinces and towns of France and Flanders have given us many common surnames. From names of provinces we have Burgoyne and Burgin, Champain and Champneys (Chapter II), Gascoyne and Gaskin, Mayne, Mansell, Old Fr. Mancel (manceau), an inhabitant of Maine or of its capital Le Mans, Brett and Britton, Fr. le Bret and le Breton, Pickard, Power, sometimes from Old Fr. Pohier, a Picard, Peto, formerly Peitow, from Poitou, Poidevin and Puddifin, for

Poitevin, Loring, Old Fr. le Lohereng, the man from Lorraine, a.s.similated to Fleming, Hammy, an old name for Hainault, Brabazon, le Brabancon, and Brebner, formerly le Brabaner, Angwin, for Angevin, Flinders, a perversion of Flanders, Barry, which is sometimes for Berri, and others which can be identified by everybody.

Among towns we have Allenson, Alencon, Amyas, Amiens, Ainger, Angers, Aris, Arras, Bevis, Beauvais, Bullen, Boulogne, Bloss, Blois, Bursell, Brussels, Callis and Challis, Calais, Challen, from one of the French towns called Chalon or Chalons, Chaworth, Cahors, Druce, Dreux, Gaunt, Gand (Ghent), Luck, Luick (Liege), Loving, Louvain, Malins, Malines (Mechlin), Raynes, Rennes and Rheims, Roan, Rouen, Sessions, Soissons, Stamp, Old Fr. Estampes (ttampes), Turney, Tournay, etc. The name de Verdun is common enough in old records for us to connect with it both the fascinating Dolly and the ill.u.s.trious Harry. [Footnote added by scanner: Some modern readers might not realise that Weekley was referring to Harry Vardon, a famous golfer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Dolly Varden was a character in d.i.c.kens'

"Barnaby Rudge", a pretty girl in flowered hats and skirts. Her name was borrowed for various clothing styles, breeds of flowers, shows, theatres and even angling fishes among other things. There seem to have been several references to "the fascinating Dolly Varden", though the expression does not occur in the book.] To the above may be added, among German towns, Cullen, Cologne, and Lubbock, Luebeck, and, from Italy, Janes, Genes (Genoa), Janaway or Janways, i.e. Genoese, and Lombard or Lombard. Familiar names of foreign towns were often anglicized. Thus we find Hamburg called Hamborough, Bruges Bridges, and Tours Towers.

To the town of Angers we sometimes owe, besides Ainger, the forbidding names Anger and Danger. In many local names of foreign origin the preposition de has been incorporated, e.g. Dalmain, d'Allemagne, sometimes corrupted into Dallman and Dollman, though these are also for Doleman, from the East Anglian dole, a boundary, Dallison, d'Alenc on, Danvers, d'Anvers, Antwerp, Devereux, d'evreux, Daubeney, Dabney, d'Aubigny, Disney, d'Isigny, etc. Doyle is a later form of Doyley, or Dolley, for d'Ouilli, and Darcy and Durfey were once d'Arcy and d'Urfe. Dew is sometimes for de Eu. Sir John de Grey, justice of Chester, had in 1246 two Alice in Wonderland clerks named Henry de Eu and William de Ho. A familiar example, which has been much disputed, is the Cambridges.h.i.+re name Death, which some of its possessors prefer to write D'Aeth or De Ath. Bardsley rejects this, without, I think, sufficient reason. It is true that it occurs as de Dethe in the Hundred Rolls, but this is not a serious argument, for we find also de Daubeney (Chapter XI), the original de having already been absorbed at the time the Rolls were compiled. This retention of the de is also common in names derived from spots which have not become recognized place-names; see Chapter XIV.

But to derive a name of obviously native origin from a place in France is a sn.o.bbish, if harmless, delusion. There are quite enough moor leys in England without explaining Morley by Morlaix. To connect the Mid. English nickname Longfellow with Longueville, or the patronymic Hansom (Chapter III) with Anceaumville, betrays the same belief in phonetic epilepsy that inspires the derivation of Barber from the chapelry of Sainte-Barbe. The fact that there are at least three places, in England called Carrington has not prevented one writer from seeking the origin of that name in the appropriate locality of Charenton.

CHAPTER XII. SPOT NAMES

"In ford, in ham, in ley and tun The most of English surnames run"

(VERSTEGAN).

Verstegan's couplet, even if it be not strictly true, makes a very good text for a discourse on our local names. The ham, or home, and the ton, or town, originally an enclosure (cf. Ger. Zaun, hedge), were, at any rate in a great part of England, the regular nucleus of the village, which in some cases has become the great town and in others has decayed away and disappeared from the map. In an age when wool was our great export, flock keeping was naturally a most important calling, and the ley, or meadow land, would be quickly taken up and a.s.sociated with human activity. When bridges were scarce, fords were important, and it is easy to see how the inn, the smithy, the cartwright's booth, etc., would naturally plant themselves at such a spot and form the commencement of a hamlet.

ELEMENTS OF PLACE-NAMES

Each of these four words exists by itself as a specific place-name and also as a surname. In fact Lee and Ford are among our commonest local surnames. In the same way the local origin of such names as Clay and Chalk may be specific as well as general. But I do not propose to deal here with the vast subject of our English village names, but only with the essential elements of which they are composed, elements which were often used for surnominal purposes long before the spot itself had developed into a village. [Footnote: A good general account of our village names will be found in the Appendix to Isaac Taylor's Names and their Histories. It is reprinted as chapter xi of the same author's Words and Places (Everyman Library). See also Johnston's Place-names of England and Wales, a glossary of selected names with a comprehensive introduction. There are many modern books on the village names of various counties, e.g. Bedfords.h.i.+re, Berks.h.i.+re, Cambridges.h.i.+re, Hertfords.h.i.+re, Huntingdons.h.i.+re, Suffolk (Skeat), Oxfords.h.i.+re (Alexander), Lancas.h.i.+re (Wyld and Hirst), West Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re (Moorman), Staffords.h.i.+re, Warwicks.h.i.+re, Worcesters.h.i.+re (Duignan), Nottinghams.h.i.+re (Mutschmann), Gloucesters.h.i.+re (Baddeley), Herefords.h.i.+re (Bannister), Wilts.h.i.+re (Elsblom), S.W. Yorks.h.i.+re (Goodall), Suss.e.x (Roberts), Lancas.h.i.+re (Sephton), Derbys.h.i.+re (Walker), Northumberland and Durham (Mawer).] Thus the name Oakley must generally have been borne by a man who lived on meadow land which was surrounded or dotted with oak-trees. But I should be shy of explaining a given village called Oakley in the same way, because the student of place-names might be able to show from early records that the place was originally an ey, or island, and that the first syllable is the disguised name of a medieval churl. These four simple etymons themselves may also become perverted. Thus -ham is sometimes confused with -holm (Chapter XII), -ley, as I have just suggested, may in some cases contain -ey, -ton occasionally interchanges with -don and -stone, and -lord with the French -fort (Chapter XIV).

In this chapter will be found a summary of the various words applied by our ancestors to the natural features of the land they lived on.

To avoid too lengthy a catalogue, I have cla.s.sified them under the three headings--

(1) Hill and Dale,

(2) Plain and Woodland,

(3) Water and Waterside,

reserving for the next chapter the names due to man's interference with the scenery, e.g. roads, buildings, enclosures, etc.

They are mostly Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian, the Celtic name remaining as the appellation of the individual hill, stream, etc. (Helvellyn, Avon, etc.). The simple word has in almost all cases given a fairly common surname, but compounds are of course numerous, the first element being descriptive of the second, e.g. Bradley, broad lea, Radley and Ridley, red lea, Brockley, brook lea or badger lea (Chapter XXIII), Beverley, beaver lea, Cleverley, clover lea, Hawley, hedge lea, Rawnsley, raven's lea, and so ad infinitum. In the oldest records spot names are generally preceded by the preposition at, whence such names as Attewell, Atwood, but other prepositions occur, as in Bythesea, Underwood and the hybrid Suttees, on Tees. Cf. such French names as Doutrepont, from beyond the bridge.

One curious phenomenon, of which I can offer no explanation, is that while many spot names occur indifferently with or without -s, e.g.

Bridge, Bridges; Brook, Brooks; Platt, Plaits, in others we find a regular preference either for the singular or plural form. [Footnote: In some cases no doubt a plural, in others a kind of genitive due to the influence of personal names, such as Wills, Perkins, etc.]

Compare the following couples:

Field Meadows

Lake Rivers

Pool Mears (metes)

Spying Wells

House Coates (P, 133)

Marsh Myers (mires)

[Footnote: Myers is very often a Jewish name, from the very common Ger. Meyer, for which see Chapter IV.]

to which many more might be added. So we find regularly Nokes but Nash (Chapter III), Beech but Willows. The general tendency is certainly towards the -s forms in the case of monosyllables, e.g.

Banks, Foulds, Hayes, Stubbs, Thwaites, etc., but we naturally find the singular in compounds, e.g. Windebank (winding), Nettlefold, Roundhay, etc.

There is also a further problem offered by names in -er. We know that a Waller was a mason or wall-builder, but was a Bridger really a Pontifex, [Footnote: An example of a Latinized name. Cf. Sutor, Faber, and the barbarous Sartorius, for sartor, a tailor. Pontifex may also be the latinized form of Pope or Bishop. It is not known why this t.i.tle, bridge-builder, was given to high-priests.] did he merely live near the bridge, or was he the same as a Bridgman, and what was the latter? Did Sam Weller's ancestor sink wells, possess a well, or live near someone else's well? Probably all explanations may be correct, for the suffix may have differed in meaning according to locality, but I fancy that in most cases proximity alone is implied.

The same applies to many cases of names in -man, such as Hillman, d.i.c.kman (d.y.k.e), Parkman.

Many of the words in the following paragraphs are obsolete or survive only in local usage. Some of them also vary considerably in meaning, according to the region in which they are found. I have included many which, in their simple form, seem too obvious to need explanation, because the compounds are not always equally clear.

HILL AND DALE