Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

tions afterwards brought the English St. Gilbert to the fore, and then the name began to grow common, so common that as 'Gib' it became the favourite sobriquet of the feline species.' In several of our earliest writers it is found in familiar use, and in the Bard of Avon's day it was not forgotten. Falstaff complains of being as melancholy as a ' gib-cat ' — that is, an old worn-out cat. Hamlet also says —

For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,

Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,

Such dear concernings hide ? (iii. 4.)

'To play the gib' was a proverbial phrase for light and wanton behaviour.' Thus 'Gilbert' has been forced into a somewhat unpleasant notoriety in feline nomenclature. But he was popular enough, too, among the human kind. In that part of the 'Town-ley Mysteries' which represents the Nativity, one of the shepherds is supposed to hail one of his friends, who is passing by. He addresses him thus:--

How, Gyb, good morn, wheder goys thou ?

In the 'Romaunt of the Rose,' it is said

'For right no more than Gibbe, our cat,

That awaiteth mice and rattes to

killen, Ne entend I but to beguilen.'

In Peele's 'Edward I.,' too, the Novice says to the Friar —

'Now, Master, as I am true wag,

I will be neither late, nor lag,

But go and come with gossips cheer,

Ere Gib, our cat, can lick her ear.'

2 Hence the old term, 'flibber-gib,' or 'flitter-gibbett,'employed by Latimer, Burton, &c.; and later, by Walter Scott, for one of vile propensities.

PATRONYMIC SURNAMES.

The surnames formed from Gilbert, too, prove his popularity.   Beside 'Gilbert' himself, we have 'Gibbs,' 'Gibbins,' 'Gibbons,' 'Gibson,'1 'Gibbonson,'and 'Gipps,' to say nothing of that famous citizen of credit and renown, 'John Gilpin,' who has immortalized at least his setting of this good old-fashioned name.

Having referred to Gilbert and Gib the cat, we must needs notice 'Theobald ' and 'Tib.' 'St. Theobald,' if he has not himself given much prominence to the title, nevertheless represents a name whose susceptibility tochange was something amazing. The common form with the French was 'Thibault ' or 'Thibaud,' and this is represented in England in such entries as 'Tebaud de Engleschevile,' 'Richard Tebaud,' or 'Roger Tebbott.' A still curter form was 'Tibbe ' or 'Tebbe;' hence such registrations as 'Tebbe Molendinarius' or ' Tebb fil. William.' In this dress it is found in the Latin lines commemorative of Tyler's insurrection:

Hudde ferit, quern judde terit, dum Tibbe juvatur,
jacke domosque viros vellit, en ense necat.

Among other surnames that speak for its faded popularity are 'Tibbes,' 'Tebbes,' and 'Tubbs,' 'Theobald 'and 'Tibbald,' 'Tibble ' and 'Tipple,' 'Tipkins ' and Tippins,' and 'Tipson,' and our endlessly varied Tibbats,' 'Tibbets,' 'Tibbits,' 'Tebbatts,' 'Tebbotts,' and 'Tebbutts.' Indeed, the name has simply run riot among the vowels. 'Hugh' I have kept till the

'A notorious rascal named 'Gybby Selby' is mentioned in 'Calendar of State Papers' for 1562. This accords with 'Robert Gybbyson,' found in the Corpus Christi Guild, York, a few years earlier.