Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

Baldwin had already appeared at the Conquest, for an aunt of Williams had married Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, and he himself was espoused to Matilda, daughter of the fifth 'Baldwin ' of that earldom. No doubt the Flemings brought in fresh accessions, and when we add to this the fact of its being by no means an unpopular Angevine name, we can readily see why

Balderson,' 'Bolderson,' 'Balcock,' 'Bodkin,'and the simple 'Baldwin,' have maintained a quiet but steady position in the English lists ever since. Thus, the Plantagenets are not without memorials, even in the nineteenth century.

III. — Names from the Calendar of the Saints.

It is to Norman influence we owe the firm establishment of several names, which had already got securely settled on the Continent on account of the odour of sanctity that had gathered about them. The Reformation threw into the shade of oblivion the memories of many holy men and women who in their day and generation exercised a powerful influence on our general nomenclature. Many of my readers will be unaware that there were three St. Geralds and three St. Gerards held in high repute previous to the eleventh century. The higher Norman families seem to have been attached to both, though 'Gerard ' has made the deepest impression. 'Gerald' and 'Fitz-Gerald' are the commonest descendants of the first. As respects 'Gerard,' such names as 'Garret Widland, 4s. 6d. (Cheth. Soc., p. 12.) 'King Hal' is still familiar to us.

PATRONYMIC SURNAMES.

drington,' or 'Jarrarde Hall,' or 'Jarat Nycholson,' found among our Yorkshire entries, serve to show how far the spirit of verbal corruption can advance; and our many 'Garrets,' 'Jarrets,' 'Jarratts,' and 'Jerards,' as surnames, will probably testify the same to all ages.' As there were twenty-eight 'Walters' in Domesday Survey, we cannot attribute the popularity of that name to St. Walter, abbot of Fontenelle in the middle of the twelfth century. But, as Miss Yonge shows, it had been spread over Aquitaine in the earlier part of the tenth century, through the celebrity of a saintly Walter who resided in that dukedom about the year 990. Few sobriquets enjoyed such a share of attention as this. In one of its nicknames, that of 'Water,'2 we are reminded of Suffolk's death in Shakespeare's Henry VI., where the murderer says

My name is Walter Whitmore.

How now ! why start'st thou? What, Both death affright!
Suffolk. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.

A cunning man did calculate my birth,

And told me that by water I should die.

University men will remember a play of another kind upon its other form of '\Vat,' in the poems of C. S. C., whose power of rhyming, at least, I have never seen surpassed, even by Ingoldsby himself. He thus begins one of his happiest efforts —

1 'To Garrett Jonson, for shoes, xs. xd.' 'To Garratt jonson, for shoes,              (Hous. Exp. Princess Eli., Cam. Soc., pp. 16-18.)

''The account of Wattage Taylor and Wyllyam Partrynge, beynge churchewardens, in the xxxii. yere of the rayne of Kyng Henry the eighth, A. D. 15412 (Ludlow: Churchwardens' Accounts, p. 6, Cam. Soc.)