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[Illustration: CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.


NO. 691.      SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1877.      PRICE 11/2_d._]




NAMES.


There might be much amusement in tracing the origin of family names.
Long ago--say about six or seven hundred years since--there were no
family names at all. People had Christian names and nothing more, and
of course there was often considerable difficulty in distinguishing
individuals. Such at present is the case in Turkey, where the old
eastern practice of using but a single name continues to be followed.
Surnames were not introduced into England until after the Conquest.
The fashion of using two names came to us from France, but for a time
was confined to families of distinction, and extended slowly over the
country. One thing is said to have promoted its use. Young ladies of
aspiring tastes declined to marry gentlemen who had only a Christian
name, such as John or Thomas, for they would necessarily have still
to be called by their own name, Mary, Elizabeth, or whatever it was.
Spinsters accordingly thought it to be a grand thing to form an
alliance with a person possessing the distinction of a family name, by
which they should ever after be called.

Curiously enough, so difficult is it to alter old usages, that until
very lately surnames were scarcely used among the humbler classes
of people in some parts of Great Britain remote from centres of
civilisation. In these places, a creditor would enter the name of
his debtor in his books as John the son of Thomas, just as you see
genealogies in the Old Testament. Only now, from improved communication
with the outer world, have practices of this kind gone out of use.
We can easily understand how the names ending in _son_, as Johnson,
Thomson, Manson (abbreviation of Magnusson), originated; and it is
equally easy to conjecture how names from professions, such as Smith,
Miller, or Cooper came into existence. It is equally obvious that
many family names are derived from the nature of the complexion of
individuals, as Black, Brown, and White.

At first sight, there is a mystery as regards the different ways in
which certain names are spelled. Smith is sometimes written Smyth;
and in some instances Brown has an _e_ at the end of it. We see the
name Reid spelled as Reade, Reed, and Rede. We see Long, Lang, and
Laing, all variations of one name. The same thing can be said of
Strong, Strang, and Strange; of Little and Liddle; of Home and Hume;
of Chambers and Chalmers; and so on with a host of surnames in daily
use. The mystery which hangs over various spellings is cleared up on a
consideration of the indifferent scholarship which prevailed until even
the middle of the eighteenth century. Names in old legal documents and
in the inscriptions on the blank leaves of family Bibles, are written
in all sorts of ways. A man seldom wrote his name twice in succession
the same way. Each member of a family followed the spelling suggested
by his own fancy, and added to or altered letters in his name with
perfect indifference. Eccentricities of this kind are still far from
uncommon in the signatures of imperfectly educated persons. There is,
in fact, a constant growth of new names, springing from ignorance and
carelessness, though also in some cases from a sense of refinement.

Perhaps there is a still more vigorous growth of names from foundlings.
Driven to their wits' end to invent names for the anonymous infants
thrown on their bounty, parish authorities are apt to cut the matter
short by conferring names that are suggested by the localities where
the poor children were picked up. A child found at a door will be
called Door, and so on with Street, Place, Steps, Basket, Turnstyle,
or anything else. Hundreds of droll names are said to have begun in
this way. Possibly it was from such origin as this that a respectable
citizen of Dublin, mentioned by Cosmo Innes in his small book on
Surnames, derived the name of Halfpenny. Mr Halfpenny, it is stated,
'throve in trade, and his children prevailed on him in his latter
years to change the name which they thought undignified; and this he
did chiefly by dropping the last letter. He died and was buried as Mr
Halpen. The fortune of the family did not recede, and the son of our
citizen thought proper to renounce retail dealing, and at the same
time looked about for a euphonious change of name. He made no scruple
of dropping the unnecessary