Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

the first Monday after Twelfth Night, and the day on which the farmer began his ploughing. It was a great rural holiday at one time, and the ploughmen as a rule got gloriously drunk. Similarly, we have 'Hockerday,' 'Hockday,' and perhaps the still more corrupted

Hobday,' the old English expression for a 'high-day.'The second Tuesday after Easter was especially so termed, and kept in early times as such, as commemorative of the driving out of the Danes in the days of Ethelred. This was a likely name to be given on such a high day in the domestic annals as that on which the first-born came into the world. Happy parents would readily seize upon this at a time when the word and its meaning were alike familiar. Our 'Hallidays' or 'Hollidays' throw us back to the Church festivals, those times of merriment and jollity which have helped to such a degree to dissociate from our minds the real meaning of the word (that is, a day set apart for holy service in commemoration of some religious event), that we have now been compelled by a varied spelling to make the distinction between a 'holyday' and a 'holiday.' Thus strongly marked upon our nomenclature is this once favourite but now wellnigh obsolete custom.

V. — Patronymics formed from Occupations.

We may here briefly refer to a class of patronymics which, although small from the first, took its place, as if insensibly, among our hereditary surnames. It is a class of occupative or professional names, with the filial desinence attached. There is nothing wonderful

PATRONYMIC SURNAMES.

in the fact of the existence of such. The wonder is that there are not more of them. It must have been all but as natural to style a man as the son of 'the Clerk' as the son of 'Harry' in a small community, where the father had, in his professional capacity, established himself as of some local importance. Hence we cannot be surprised to find 'Clerkson' in our registers. It is thus the 'sergeant' has bequeathed us our ' Sergeantsons;' the 'kemp,' or soldier, our Kempsons; ' the 'cook,' our 'Cooksons,' or 'Filius Coci,' as the Hundred Rolls have it; the 'smith,' our 'Smithsons;' the 'steward,' our 'Stewardsons;' the 'grieve,' i.e. 'reeve,' our 'Grievesons;' the 'miller,' our'Millersons;' and the 'shepherd,' our 'Shepherdsons.' Of other instances, now obsolete, we had 'Masterson,' 'Hyneson,' 'Hopperson,' 'Scolardson,' and 'Priest-son.' Nor were the Normans without traces of this practice, although in their case all the examples I have met with have ceased to exist amongst us. 'Fitz-Clerk' but corresponds with one of the above; while.the warden of the woods gave us 'Fitz-Parker,'and that of the college, 'Fitz-Provost.' Thus, those who yet possess names of this class may congratulate themselves upon belonging to a small but compact body which has ever existed amid our more general nomenclature.

VI. — Metronymics.

We have already mentioned Joan as having bequeathed several surnames. We did not then allude to the somewhat difficult subject of metronymics;

1 I see, however, from the Clerical Directory, that 'Hindson' is still in existence. A 'Nicholas Hopperson' is found in an old college register for 1582. Mist. C. C. Coll. Cam.)

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