The Romance of Names Part 34

(D, 1871.)

The name can equally well be the local Burhill or Burwell.

Murray is too common to be referred entirely to the Scottish name and is sometimes for murrey, dark red (Fr. mure, mulberry). It may also represent merry, in its variant form murie, which is Mid. English, and not, as might appear, Amurrican--

"His murie men comanded he To make hym bothe game and glee."

(B, 2029.)

Pook, of uncertain origin, is supposed to have been a dark russet colour. Bayard, a derivative of bay, was the name of several famous war-horses. Cf. Blank and Blanchard. The name Soar is from the Old French adjective sor, bright yellow. It is of Germanic origin and cognate with sere.

The dim. Sorrel may be a colour name, but it was applied in venery to a buck in the third year, of course in reference to colour; and some of our names, e.g. Brocket and p.r.i.c.kett, [Footnote: Both words are connected with the spiky young horns, Fr. broche, spit, being applied in venery to the pointed horns of the second year.] both applied to a two-year-old stag, must sometimes be referred to this important department of medieval language. Holofernes uses some of these terms in his idiotic verses

"The preyful princess pierc'd and p.r.i.c.k'd a pretty pleasing priket; Some say a sore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting.

The dogs did yell; put l to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket."

(Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 2.)

A few adjective nicknames of Celtic origin are so common in England that they may be included here. Such are the Welsh Gough, Goff, Gooch, Gutch, red, Gwynn and Wynne, white, Lloyd, grey, Sayce, Saxon, foreigner, Vaughan, small, and the Gaelic Bain, Bean, white, Boyd, Bowie, yellow-haired, Dow, Duff, black, Finn, fair, Gla.s.s, grey, Roy, Roe, red. From Cornish come Coad, old, and Couch, [Footnote: Cognate with Welsh Gough.] red, while Bean is the Cornish for small, and Tyacke means a farmer. It is likely that both Begg and Moore owe something to the Gaelic adjectives for little and big, as in the well-known names of Callum Beg, Edward Waverley's gillie, and McCallum More. The Gaelic Begg is cognate with the Welsh Vaughan. Two other famous Highland nicknames which are very familiar in England are Cameron, crooked nose, and Campbell, wry mouth. With these may be mentioned the Irish Kennedy, ugly head, the name of the father of Brian Boru.

CHAPTER XXIII. BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES

"As I think I have already said, one of Umslopogaas'

Zulu names was The Woodp.e.c.k.e.r."

(HAGGARD, Allan Quatermain, ch. vii.)

The great majority of nicknames coming under the headings typified by Bird and Fowell, Best, and Fish or Fisk (Scand.) are easily identified. But here, as everywhere in the subject, pitfalls abound.

The name Best itself is an example of a now misleading spelling retained for obvious reasons--

"First, on the wal was peynted a forest, In which ther dwelleth neither man nor best."

(A, 1976.)

We do not find exotic animals, nor even the beasts of heraldry, at all frequently. Leppard, leopard, is in some cases for the Ger. Liebhart; and Griffin, when not Welsh, should no doubt be included among inn-signs. Oliphant, i.e. elephant--

"For maystow surmounten thise olifauntes in gretnesse or weighte of body" (Boece, 782)--

may be a genuine nickname, but Roland's ivory horn was also called by this name, and the surname may go back to some legendary connection of the same kind. Bear is not uncommon, captive bears being familiar to a period in which the t.i.tle bear-ward is frequently met with.

It is possible that Drake may sometimes represent Anglo-Sax. draca, dragon, rather than the bird, but the latter is unmistakable in Sheldrick, for sheldrake. As a rule, animal nicknames were taken rather from the domestic species with which the peasantry were familiar and whose habits would readily suggest comparisons, generally disparaging, with those of their neighbours.

BIRDS

Bird names are especially common, and it does not need much imagination to see how readily and naturally a man might be nicknamed Hawke for his fierceness, Crowe from a gloomy aspect, or Nightingale for the gift of sweet song. Many of these surnames go back to words which are now either obsolete or found only in dialect. The peac.o.c.k was once the Poe, an early loan from Lat. pavo, or, more fully, Poc.o.c.k

"A sheaf of poc.o.k arwes, bright and kene, Under his belt he bar ful thriftily."

(A, 104.)

The name Pay is another form of the same word. Coe, whence Hedgecoe, is an old name for the jackdaw--

"Cadow, or coo, or chogh (chough), monedula" (Prompt. Parv.)--

but may also stand for cow, as we find, in defiance of gender and s.e.x, such entries as Robert le cow, William le vache. Those birds which have now a.s.sumed a font-name, such as Jack daw, Mag pie, of course occur without it as surnames, e.g. Daw and Pye--

"The thief the chough, and eek the jangelyng pye" (Parliament of Fowls, 305).

The latter has a dim. Pyatt.

Rainbird is a local name for the green woodp.e.c.k.e.r, but as an East-Anglian name it is most likely an imitative form of Fr. Rimbaud or Raimbaud, identical with Anglo-Sax. Regenbeald. Knott is the name of a bird which frequents the sea-sh.o.r.e and, mindful of c.n.u.t's wisdom, retreats nimbly before the advancing surf--

"The knot that called was Canutus' bird of old."

(Drayton, Polyolbion, xxv. 368.)

This historical connection is most probably due to folk-etymology.

t.i.tmus is of course for t.i.t-mouse. Dialect names for the woodp.e.c.k.e.r survive in Speight, Speke, and Spick, Pick (Chapter III). The same bird was also called woodwall--

"In many places were nyghtyngales, Alpes, fynches, and wodewales"

(Romaunt of the Rose, 567)--

hence, in some cases, the name Woodall. The Alpe, or bullfinch, mentioned in the above lines, also survives as a surname. Dunnock and Pinnock are dialect names for the sparrow. It was called in Anglo-Norman muisson, whence Musson. Starling is a dim. of Mid. Eng.

stare, which has itself given the surname Starr

"The stare, that the counseyl can be-wrye." (Parliament of Fowls, 348.)

Heron is the French form of the bird-name which was in English Herne--

"I come from haunts of coot and hern." (Tennyson, The Brook, 1. 1.)

The Old French dim. heronceau also pa.s.sed into English--

"I wol nat tellen of hir strange sewes (courses), Ne of hir swannes, ne of hire heronsewes."

(F, 67.)

As a surname it has been a.s.similated to the local, and partly identical, Hearnshaw (Chapter XII). Some commentators go to this word to explain Hamlet's use of handsaw--

"I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw" (Hamlet, ii. 2).

When the author's father was a boy in Suffolk eighty years ago, the local name for the bird was p.r.o.nounced exactly like answer. Grew is Fr. grue, crane, Lat. grus, gru-. b.u.t.ter, Fr. butor, "a bittor"