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situation as currently understood is set out by McKinley (1990: 199–203); he shows that the difference in surnaming practices of different classes was relative rather than absolute.
The surname stock, once established, is not subject to much radical change. But an unexplained major development takes place principally between about 1550 and 1650, whereby surnames of a topographical kind, such as Mill and Grove, may sprout an <s>, and surnames with this <s> have in some areas become at least as frequent as their counterparts without (McKinley, 1990: 85–7).
6.4.4 |
The linguistic structure of surnames |
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Spellings of surnames can be very problematic. As we have noted, surnames with the same origin may turn up in more than one guise due to their having become locally fixed before the standardisation of spelling (Brown/Browne). Some may show the effect of local sound changes (Vowles, Oldroyd, Wheatfill), or may have been reversed in the lexical word or source name through the influence of spelling (Bailey (= bailiff), Lunnon (= London)), whilst others show conservative spellings (notoriously such items as Featherstonehaugh, pronounced Fanshaw, where the syncopated form also exists alongside the etymological source form, and ffitch, where an early modern spelling using an allograph of <f> that looks like a double <f> has been preserved). In this group are also names taken from places where the general pronunciation departs from that of the local place-name, e.g. Greenhalgh [gri nhalʃ], [gri nhɔ(l)], from the Lancashire place whose name is pronounced [gri nð]. Others may respect current phonology more than the spelling of the corresponding lexical word does (Clark and Sargeant as compared with clerk and sergeant). A reasonably consistent spelling rule is that where a monosyllabic short-vowelled lexical item ends in a single consonant, the corresponding surname has this consonant doubled (Squibb, Catt,
Knapp, Starr, Ramm, Wrenn; though we may find Trim, Ham, Wren, etc. where the final consonant is a nasal). The influence of spelling conventions for names of classical origin may be seen in Bacchus for Backhouse and Rhodes for Roads, which have nothing to do historically with the names they now resemble.
Folk-etymology and seemingly arbitrary change (presumably originally due to mishearing by non-local writers) abound in surnames; note Kittermaster (from Kidderminster Wo), Thoroughgood (from the Norse name usually spelt in England Thurgood), Faircloth (for Fairclough, place-name ‘beautiful ravine’) and Potiphar (Med Fr pe´ de fer ‘iron foot’), showing the impact of biblical knowledge.
We can classify surnames into these categories:
1.Descriptive surnames are usually plain adjectives (e.g. Long, Hardy, Raggett ‘ragged’, Arliss ‘earless’) or much less commonly adjectives with postmodification (e.g. Fullalove ‘full of love’, ‘randy’) or premodification (Wellbeloved); or plain nouns applied in virtue of their literal meaning (excluding here those of occupation) such as Twinn
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or Gemmell ‘twin’ or (judgementally) Treacher ‘cheat’, or metaphorically such as Frogg or Bull (if the latter is not metonymic for a cattle-related occupation). NPs lacking a determiner may be literal (Younghusband, Goodlad, Longman) or have a metonymic application amounting to ‘having (a) NP’ where the NP presumably refers to what is the bearer’s most distinctive trait, as with Beard, Greathead, Proudfoot, Lovelock, Sheepshanks; and VPs with a bare-stem verb may have the application ‘(he) characteristically Xs’, as with
Gotobed, Startup, Standaloft, Eatwell, or ‘(he) characteristically Vs (a, or his) NP’, as with Dolittle, Shakeshaft, Scattergood, Catchpole
‘chase-chicken’ (i.e. someone who collected taxes in kind).
2.Locational surnames mainly take the form of metonymic noun phrases with no overt determiner (Green, Church, Lane, Backhouse ‘bakehouse’), with A+N sequences functioning effectively as compounds if they are not actually place-names (Greenwood, Diplock ‘deep stream’), and of course countless locational surnames are place-names used metonymically. Some French names in England are PPs where the NP is represented by a place-name (Diaper = d’Ypres; Disney = d’Isigny), though the place-name is rarely if ever one in England in surviving surnames. However, English topographical nouns in (Law) French structures are found in Delbridge and Delahooke. Fully English prepositional phrases were once found, e.g. In the Hale, but few survive, and most of those that do are formed with at and a (synchronically) undetermined noun (Atwell, Underhill). Traces of a determiner can be seen before a vowel-initial noun, as with Nash (ME atten Asshe). Other PP-names include Bytheseashore and Bywood. It has now been demonstrated that surnames of the suffixed shape X- er may mean ‘man living at a/the X’, as in Waterer (McClure, 1982). Compounds of a locational term with man are known, e.g. Bridgeman, Hillman, and with a place-name, especially from the north country, e.g. Fentiman ‘Fenton man’.
3.Surnames of relationship are mainly patronymic. The basic type is where the father’s name was simply appended to the given name without modification. It is very striking that those OE given names which have survived to be modern surnames are almost invariably structurally plain, and the exceptions are easily categorised. In this set fall Seabright, Livesey, Godwin, Edrich and Woolgar; we return to the exceptions shortly. If it is true that such plain names are typical of southern and eastern surnaming practices, then it follows that survival of OE given names was strongest in these areas, but that has not become the accepted opinion. Modified patronyms are formed either by adding -son (mainly northern) or -s (mainly western), as in Johnson vs Johns. The few OE survivals which may participate in this system are Edward(-s; rarely -son), Edmund(-s, -son) and
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Cuthbert(-son; never -s). These are significant as the names of widely venerated pre-Conquest saints which were not supplanted in the replacement of the native stock discussed in Section 6.2. Only Alderson (from OE Ealdhere) appears to be a fairly frequent true exception. Phonology dictates that we cannot tell whether names like Johnson were originally [plain name + son] or [name in the genitive case + son], because ME male names in the genitive took a suffix -(e)s. No clear evidence for the latter possibility exists. Where the base given name is female, we can be sure it was plain, since female names did not form suffixal genitives in high ME (hence Marjorison ‘Margery-son’). The only blood relationship expressed in surnames apart from that of son is the one expressed by the rare -mough in Hitchmough and Watmough. This is from ME ma¯ , and is generally held to mean loosely ‘kinsman’, here the kinsman of Hitch (Richard) and Wat (Walter). No names are known to have entered this construction with a suffixal genitive, which makes it very probable that the Johnson type also did not. A looser usage developed where man could be attached to a personal name, as with Rickman and Henman for men associated with Rickard and Henry. A non-blood relationship is indicated in the defunct byname Milnerstepson ‘miller’s stepson’ (NB with a descriptive term not a personal name) and the extraordinary by-name Johanesleman ‘John’s lover’, likewise defunct for obvious reasons.
We discussed earlier the immense range of hypocoristic names that were derived in the Middle Ages from a fairly small set of current given names. Surnames could, in principle, be formed from any one of these. Accordingly, taking William as an example, we find: William Williamson Williams Will Willson/Willison Wills/Willis Willmot Willmots Willet Willets Willard Willie Willcock Willcockson Willcocks Wilkin Wilkinson Wilkins Wilk Wilks with numerous spelling variants such as the dominant Wilson and Wilcox. Often the most interesting thing about these name groups is the original geographical distribution of the variants; thus for instance Wilkinson and Williamson are markedly northern English and/or Scottish, and there is a concentration of Willmott in Derbyshire.
We may broaden the ‘relationship’ category by including surnames which allude to relationships without naming. Into this category go Milnerstepson and the still-extant Cookson, both based on occupational terms, and Wid(d)owson and the enigmatic Ba(i)rnsfather ‘child’s father’, perhaps euphemistically for ‘bastard’s father’ in a context where bastards were few.
4.Occupational terms are usually structurally straightforward, although many naturally end in -er, the agent suffix (witness the material in Fransson, 1935), or the more specific -herd, -wright and -smith. A common variant of the occupational type is represented by a
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metonymic usage, i.e. one which alludes to the trade of the man named without mentioning it. A spice merchant might be called Culpepper ‘gather pepper’; a baker might be called Cakebread or Wafer, though we cannot be sure whether these were his specialities or joking ways of referring to the trade he followed.
Of great linguistic and cultural interest are the occupational surnames in -ster, such as Webster ‘weaver’ and Baxter ‘baker’. These originally denoted a female, and they contrast with male equivalents like Webber, Baker. They are the only surnames in this group to express formally the sex of the bearer, though it is clear that eventually no such contrast was observed. They were being used of men at least in the south country by 1200, but until 1400 there can be found relatively rare instances of the descent of surnames through the female line (McKinley, 1990: 47–8). It is therefore possible that Webster and the like were indeed originally the occupational by-names of women. But since it is very hard to suggest surnames in the other three categories which must originally denote females, the presumption must remain that ambivalent cases apply to a male. The whole question of women’s by-names surviving to become inherited surnames needs more research.
6.4.5 Other languages of English surnames
During the surname-forming period the native language of some of the population was French, and French was the language of civil administration. Accordingly, some characteristically English surnames are in fact French. Latin was also used as a language of record for some purposes, e.g. the business of manorial courts, and quite rarely we have cases of what appears to be a stock surname perpetuated in Latin translation, notably Faber ‘smith’ and Sutor ‘shoemaker’. We have already noted occasional classicising influence on the spelling of fully English names.
6.4.6 |
Surnaming since about 1500 |
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Once the surname stock was established, which was done essentially by the fifteenth century, little happened to change the system. In linguistic terms, the next major development was the introduction of compounded (‘doublebarrelled’) surnames from the eighteenth century onwards. This happened largely for legal and social reasons. A man might adopt, in addition to his own, the surname of another family as a condition of coming into an inheritance, or simply to associate himself with some social clout. Once this pattern was established, double-barrelling for its own sake became widespread. It is noticeable how many double-barrelled surnames have one of the more frequent surnames as the second element; a typical case must have been that of the Victorian painter who was born (1833) E. B. (Edward Burne) Jones and died (1898) (Sir) Edward Burne-Jones.