Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

have instanced, were of no Saxon stock, but the sons of the humbler dependants of those Normans who had obtained landed settlements, or of Norman traders who had travelled up the country, fixing their habitation wheresoever the wants of an increasing people seemed to give them an opportunity of gaining a livelihood. The children of such, driven out of these smaller communities by the fact that there was no further opening for them, poor as the villeins amongst whom they dwelt, but different in that they were free, would naturally resort to the metropolis and other large centres of industry. Not a few, however, would belong to the free Saxons, who, much against their will, no doubt, but for the sake of gain, would pass in the community to which they had joined themselves by the name belonging to the more powerful and mercantile party. In the same way, too, some not small proportion of these names would belong to those Saxon serfs who, having escaped their bondage, would, on reaching the towns, change their names to elude detection. These, of course, would be got from the Norman category. But be all this as it may, the fact remains that throughout all the records and rolls of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we find, with but the rarest exceptions, all our personal names to be Norman. The Saxon seems to have become well-nigh extinct. There might have been a war of extermination against them. In an unbroken succession we meet with such names as 'John' and 'Richard,' 'Robert' and 'Henry,' 'Thomas' and 'Ralph,' 'Geoffrey' and 'Jordan,' 'Stephen' and 'Martin,' 'Joscelyn.' and 'Almaric,' 'Benedict' and 'Laurence,' 'Reginald' and

PATRONYMIC SURNAMES.

Gilbert,' 'Roger' and 'Walter,' 'Eustace ' and 'Baldwin,' 'Francis' and 'Maurice,' 'Theobald' and 'Cecil,' — no 'Edward,' no 'Edmund,' no 'Harold' even, saving in very isolated cases. It is the same with female names. While 'Isabel' and 'Matilda,' 'Mirabilla' and 'Avelina,' 'Amabilla' and 'Idonia,' 'Sibilla' and 'Ida,' 'Letitia' and 'Agnes,' 'Petronilla' or 'Parnel' and 'Lucy,' 'Alicia' and 'Avice,' 'Alianora,' or 'Anora' and 'Dowsabell,' ' Clarice' and 'Muriel,' 'Agatha' and 'Rosamund,' 'Felicia' and 'Adelina,' 'Julia' and 'Blanche,' 'Isolda' and 'Amelia' or 'Emilia,' 'Beatrix' and 'Euphemia,' 'Annabel' and 'Theophania,' 'Constance' and 'Joanna' abound; 'Etheldreda,' or 'Edith,' or 'Ermentrude,' all of the rarest occurrence, are the only names whichmay breathe to us of purely Saxon times. In the case of several, however, a special effort was made later on, when the policy of allaying the jealous feelings of the popular class was resorted to. For a considerable time the royal and chief baronial familieshad in their pride sought names for their children from the Norman category merely. After the lapse of a century, however, finding the Saxon spirit still chafed and uneasy under a foreign thrall, several names of a popular character were introduced into the royal nursery. Thus was it with 'Edward' and Edmund.' The former of these appellations was represented by Edward I., the latter by his brother Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. Previously to this, too, an attempt had been made to restore the British 'Arthur' in that nephew of Coeur de Lion who so miserably perished by his uncle's means, and thereby

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