Surnames as a Science

Оглавление

Ferguson Robert. Surnames as a Science

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. THE ANTIQUITY AND THE UNSUSPECTED DIGNITY OF SOME OF OUR COMMON NAMES

CHAPTER II. CLUE TO SOME OF THE ANCIENT FORMS REPRESENTED IN ENGLISH NAMES

CHAPTER III. NAMES REPRESENTING ANCIENT COMPOUNDS

CHAPTER IV. THE MEN WHO CAME IN WITH THE SAXONS

CHAPTER V. MEN'S NAMES IN PLACE-NAMES

CHAPTER VI. CORRUPTIONS AND CONTRACTIONS

CHAPTER VII. THE OLD FRANKS AND THE PRESENT FRENCH

CHAPTER VIII. THE GERMAN ORIGIN OF GREAT ITALIANS AS EVIDENCED IN THEIR NAMES

CHAPTER IX. VARIOUS UNENUMERATED STEMS

CHAPTER X. NAMES WHICH ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM

CHAPTER XI. CHRISTIAN NAMES OF WOMEN.47

LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS CONSULTED

ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS

Отрывок из книги

As some things that seem common, and even ignoble, to the naked eye, lose their meanness under the revelations of the microscope, so, many of our surnames that seem common and even vulgar at first sight, will be found, when their origin is adequately investigated, to be of high antiquity, and of unsuspected dignity. Clodd, for instance, might seem to be of boorish origin, and Clout to have been a dealer in old rags. But I claim for them that they are twin brothers, and etymologically the descendants of a Frankish king. Napp is not a name of distinguished sound, yet it is one that can take us back to that far-off time ere yet the history of England had begun, when, among the little kinglets on the old Saxon shore, "Hnaf ruled the Hôcings."1 Moll, Betty, Nanny, and Pegg sound rather ignoble as the names of men, yet there is nothing of womanliness in their warlike origin. Bill seems an honest though hardly a distinguished name, unless he can claim kinship with Billing, the "noble progenitor of the royal house of Saxony." Now Billing, thus described by Kemble, is a patronymic, "son of Bill or Billa," and I claim for our Bill (as a surname) the right, as elsewhere stated, to be considered as the progenitor. Among the very shortest names in all the directory are Ewe, Yea, and Yeo, yet theirs also is a pedigree that can take us back beyond Anglo-Saxon times. Names of a most disreputable appearance are Swearing and Gambling, yet both, when properly inquired into, turn out to be the very synonyms of respectability. Winfarthing again would seem to be derived from the most petty gambling, unless he can be rehabilitated as an Anglo-Saxon Winfrithing (patronymic of Winfrith.) A more unpleasant name than Gumboil (Lower) it would not be easy to find, and yet it represents, debased though be its form, a name borne by many a Frankish warrior, and by a Burgundian king fourteen centuries ago. Its proper form would be Gumbald (Frankish for Gundbald), and it signifies "bold in war." Another name which wofully belies its origin is Tremble, for, of the two words of which it is composed, one signifies steadfast or firm, and the other signifies valiant or bold. Its proper form is Trumbald, and the first step of its descent is Trumbull. A name which excites anything but agreeable associations is Earwig. Yet it is at any rate a name that goes back to Anglo-Saxon times, there being an Earwig, no doubt a man of some consideration, a witness to a charter (Thorpe, p. 333). And the animal which it represents is not the insect of insidious repute, but the sturdy boar so much honoured by our Teuton forefathers, ear being, as elsewhere noted, a contraction of evor, boar, so that Earwig is the "boar of battle." Of more humiliating seeming than even Earwig is Flea (vouched for by Lower as an English surname). And yet it is at all events a name of old descent, for Flea – I do not intend it in any equivocal sense, for the stem is found in Kemble's list of early settlers – came in with the Saxons. And though it has nothing to do with English "flea," yet it is no doubt from the same root, and expresses the same characteristic of agility so marvellously developed in the insect.

Even Bugg, if he had seen his name under this metaphorical microscope, might have felt himself absolved from changing it into Howard, for Bugg is at least as ancient, and etymologically quite as respectable. It is a name of which great and honourable men of old were not ashamed; there was, for instance, a Buga, minister to Edward of Wessex, who signs his name to many a charter. And there was also an Anglo-Saxon queen, Hrothwaru, who was also called Bucge, which I have elsewhere given reasons for supposing to have been her original name. There are moreover to be found, deduced from place-names, two Anglo-Saxons named respectively Buga and Bugga, owners of land, and therefore respectable. In Germany we find Bugo, Bugga, and Bucge, as ancient names of men and women in the Altdeutsches Namenbuch. And Bugge is at present a name both among the Germans and the Scandinavians, being, among others, that of a distinguished professor at Christiania. As to its origin, all that we can predicate with anything like confidence is that it is derived from a word signifying to bend, and of the various senses thus derived, that of ring or bracelet (O.N. baugr) seems to me the most appropriate. The bracelet was of old an honourable distinction, and the prince, as the fountain of honour, was the "bracelet-giver."2

.....

There was another old hero of the German race, not so fortunate as Arminius in finding an historian in a generous foe, whose name only comes before us in a line of Horace: —

Cotiso must have been a leader of some High German tribe, perhaps somewhere on the Upper Danube, and he must have made a gallant stand against the Roman arms, inasmuch as his final overthrow is deemed by the Roman poet a worthy subject on which to congratulate his imperial patron. Cotiso is a High German form of another name, Godiso or Godizo, elsewhere referred to, and hence may be represented, I venture to think, in our names Godsoe and Goddiss, while Cotiso itself may be represented in our Cottiss, the ancient vowel-ending being in our names, as I shall show in the next chapter, sometimes dropped and sometimes retained.

.....