What’s in a Name?

THE use of surnames by those with Anglo-Celtic origins only became fashionable in the last 500 years or so.

A standard work for the study of the roots of Anglo-Celtic surnames, Patronymica Britannica, was produced in 1860 in England, but experts now regard it as merely a collection of educated guesses, unsupported by hard evidence.

The release in 1901 of Bardsley’s The Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames gave renewed impetus to this field of study.

More records have been made more accessible over the past century and more scholars have researched original sources.

This trend, together with advances in the study of English language itself, has meant surnames, and what they might have once meant, continue to be uncovered.

Anglo-Celtic surnames, where they have been used at all – the Welsh largely got by without them before the reign of King Henry VIII – have been pummelled and moulded into an ever-expanding galaxy of derivations as successive waves of invaders have over-run the British Isles, bringing new languages, voice inflections, customs, ceremonies and dialects.

After Saxon culture (from Germany) yielded to Scandinavian mores (principally Danish), the Romans (with their Latin and written language) briefly held sway.

The French-speaking Normans and the almost-universal take-up of Christianity impacted enormously on Old English and Celtic naming traditions.

The necessity (for survival and the promise of future prosperity) to ditch a surname that had religious or foreign-sounding baggage explains why a wide array of very respectable and benign handles – many in use for centuries on the Continent – went extinct soon after European refugees came ashore in Great Britain.

Added to this mix you have ages-old local surnames, as well as surnames relating to relationships; surnames derived from the occupation or office of the individual; and the hardest nut to crack – nicknames.

In 1366 the Irish – deeply imbued with Celtic language and cultural traditions – had such customs virtually taken out of their hands by an English statute designed to help eradicate local habits and foster the uptake of English as the mother tongue.

This was taken a step further in 1465 when another law specifically required ‘that every Irishman…shall take to him an English Surname of one town…or colour, (such) as white, blacke; or arte or science, (such) as smith or carpenter; or office, (such) as cooke, butler…’.

A relatively simple handle to visualise the origins of is the surname, Taylor (and its many derivations). Taylor has been handed down in recorded history since at least the year 1180 in England. Naturally, it refers to the then-occupation of the first holders of the surname – perhaps the person in the village who dabbled in the rag trade and mended or sewed cloth for a living – a bloke who didn’t mind being called tailor (pronounced phonetically as taa-lah).

The surname Collins (and its many derivations, among which may be recorded Collings, Collin, Colin, Collinge, etc), by way of contrast, is generally given to mean Col-in, or Col a pet form of Nicholas – presumably a long-distant variation on the penchant for early Christians to appropriate patron saint or other Bible-related names at will.

The variations of the spelling of a surname come down to us through the centuries simply through the vagaries of how an individual – as he or she pronounced a surname in his or her own local brogue or burr – has had his or her name recorded by local petty officialdom whose records survive in the archives.

As the recording of surnames is also such a relatively recent phenomenon, it is important that family historians keep an open mind when trying to pinpoint (or eliminate from consideration) a specific individual on a family tree, based on an accepted, present-day spelling of a name.

A good rule of thumb is to never entirely discount a connection when it comes to an individual with a slightly differently spelt surname.

In the space of a couple of generations the spelling of even the most common moniker may vary markedly due to an inane local custom, sloppy handwriting or just plain old bureaucratic indifference.