Where did the English get their names?

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 5, 28 July 1987, Page 19

Where did the English get their names?

This article on the origin of English surnames was written by Andrew Parker of Piriaka. Mr Parker, who emigrated to New Zealand from England, has had a life-long interest in genealogy.

Our surname is something we carry all our life; it is the means by which we identify ourselves, and others identify us. Yet, how many of us wonder about the origin of our surname, which, in many cases, has been handed down from father to son for centuries? In the case of English surnames, it really is centuries. By the year 1400, most people in England had a hereditary surname (one which is passed on to one's children). Before 1066, surnames were unknown in England. People had individual names like Aethelbert or Wulfstan. It was after the Norman conquest in 1066 that surnames gradually came into use. It was the Normans who introduced such first-names as William, Robert, Richard, Henry, John, Stephen and Geoffrey. In time, the English gave their own children these names so that there were so many Johns and Williams in the same community that it became necessary to give people a second name to distinguish them from other people of the same name. The two centuries from 1200 to 1400 was the principal time of surname formation in England. From the great mass of records that exist in England in regular series from 1155 (e.g. court records, subsidy returns - lists of taxpayers, manor rolls, registers of freemen - of towns, etc.), historians and

genealogists have been able to do a lot of research into the origin and use of surnames. Surnames are a link with the Middle Ages. They connect us with an ancestor (in the male line) who lived in medieval times, perhaps 25 generations ago. For this reason alone,, they make a fascinating subject. Also, surnames provide an insight into the language and way of life of those times. Many words which are no longer in use are preserved in surnames. For example, the Wright was a carpenter or jciner, a worker in wood, from which we get the surnames Wright, Arkwright, Plowright, Wainwright, Wheelwright, etc. An ark was a chest or a box; a wain was a wagon. So, here are surnames which contain two words no longer in use. Sometimes surnames preserve different dialects. Fuller, Walker and Tucker all refer to the same occupation. They all relate to the weaving or cloth industry in England. The raw cloth had to be scoured and thickened by beating it in water, a process known as fulling in the south and east of England, and tucking in the south-west. It was also called walking in the north and west because originally it was done by men trampling upon the cloth in a trough. Hence, Fuller, Tucker or

Walker, the person who performed this task, the surnames preserving the names of a long forgotten craft. People in medieval times lived very close to nature which was all around them. Almost every bird and animal in their lives has given rise to a surname, e.g. bull, bullock, cock, buck, brock (badger), fox, todd (fox in the north), lamb, hare, peacock, rook, drake, swan, starling and many more. People even gave first names to many of the birds, some of which have stuck, e.g. robin redbreast, jenny wren and tom tit. The redbreast is known as a robin, which is what happened to the martin, a bird like a swallow. The pie and the daw were given the names Mag and Jack and today are known as the magpie and the jackdaw! English surnames can be grouped into four categories; surnames of relationship, place names, surnames from occupation or office and nicknames. Surnames of relationship usually identify a man as the son of his father, e.g. Johnson, Williamson, Richardson, Thompson (Tom's son), Stevenson etc., often just Johns, Williams, Richards or Stephens. Sometimes the mother is remembered as in Allison (Alice's son). Place names can be put in two groups. One group is those surnames named

after a topographical feature such as Hill, Lake, Wood, Green, Brook, etc., adopted by people living on a hill, near a lake or wood, on the village green or by a brook (small river). The other group is names from a hamlet or village or town or county, e.g. Banham, Norton, Coventry, Devonshire. People acquired a surname in this way by moving away from their place of origin. For example Whalley is the name of a village in Lancashire. If, say around 1300, a man named' John who was born and brought up in Whalley moved to another village or town, he might have been known in this new place as John of Whalley or John Whalley. If he settled down in this new place, then his children may have adopted or been given Whalley as a surname. It has been shown that from just one large parish, Halifax in Yorkshire, well over 100 place-names from within this parish developed into surnames which have survived until the present day, most of them unique to this parish, such as Ackroyd, Brearley, Gledhill, Helliwell, Hemingway, Illingworth, Murgatroyd, Shackleton, Stansfield, Sutcliffe, etc. Some surnames from occupation have already been mentioned (Wright, Fuller, etc.). Many common surnames can be put in this category, e.g. Barber, Butcher, Barker, Taylor, Potter, Turner, etc. Many preserve the names of long forgotten crafts, e.g. Fletcher (arrow-maker), Lorimer (maker of spurs). The commonest of all, Smith, shows how important the blacksmith was in every community. Without

Origin of surnames

cont'd from p. 19 him, to make the plough and shoe the horses, the village or manor could not have survived. To this group we have to add officers of the manor of the state such as steward, marshall, bailey, reeve, etc. Nicknames form a fascinating group. There is almost no limit to the range of nicknames adopted as surnames. Another group of nicknames are those such as Abbott, Bishop, Pope, Knight, King, etc. Most of these must have been iron-

ical, in the same way that a man named Peacock may have strutted around a lot. Another explanation may be that these were parts played in the plays or pageants which were very much a part of medieval life. From this distance in time, it's difficult to say with certainty. It has been estimated that there are perhaps 100,000 different English surnames in use today. An equal number, probably, have disappeared over the centuries. From this distance in time, it's difficult to say with certainty.