Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

see,' 'and it should be done.' 'Our 'Cloughs' represent the narrow fissures betwixt the hills. From the same root we owe our 'Clives' (the 'de la Clive' of the Hundred Rolls), 'Cliffes,' 'Cleves,' and 'Clowes,' not to mention our endless 'Cliffords,' 'Cliftons,' 'Clifdens,' 'Cliveleys,' 'Clevelands,' 'Tunnicliffes,' 'Sutcliffes,' 'Nethercliffes,' 'Topliffs,' 'Ratcliffes,' or 'Redcliffes,' 'Faircloughs,' and 'Stonecloughs.' Any prominence of rock or earth was a ' cop,' or ' cope,'from the Saxon ' cop,' a head .2 Chaucer talks of the 'cop of the nose.'In Wicklyffe's version of Luke iv. 29, it says, 'And thei risen up and droven him out withouten the cytee, and ledden him to the coppe of the hill on which their cytee was bilded to cast him down.' We still talk of a coping-stone. Hence, from its local use, we have derived our 'Copes' and 'Copps,' 'Copleys' and 'Copelands,'and 'Copestakes.' From ' cob,'which is but another form of the same word, we get our 'Cobbs,' 'Cob-hams,' 'Cobwells,' 'Cobdens,' and 'Cobleys.' Thus, to consult the Parliamentary Writs alone, we find such entries as 'Robert de Cobbe,' 'Reginald de Cobeham,' 'John de Cobwell,' or 'Godfrey de Copp-den.' As a cant term for a rich or prominent man 'cob' is found in many of our later writers, and 'cobby' more early implied a headstrong nature. Another term in use for a local prominence was

1 Quite as good a story, and one less objectionable, is told of a Scottish Member of Parliament called Dunlop, who, at a large dinner party, having asserted that no one could make a pun upon his name, met with the instant reply from one of his guests, 'Oh, yes, I can. Lop off the last syllable, and it is done.'

2 Thus in the 'Proverbs of Hending,' it is said 'When the coppe is fullest, then the hair is fairest.'

LOCAL SURNAMES.

'ness,' or ' naze.' 'Roger atte Ness' occurs in the thirteenth century; and 'Longness' and 'Thickness' and 'Redness' are but compounds, unless, as is quite possible, they be from the same root in its more personal relationship to the human face, the word nose being familiarly so pronounced at this time. Our 'Downs' and 'Dunns,' when not sprung from 'le Dun,' are but descendants of the old ' de la Dune,' of the hilly slopes; our 'Combs' and 'Combes' representing the 'de la Cumbe' of the ridgy hollows, or 'cup-shaped depressions' of the higher hillsides, as Mr. Taylor happily expresses it. It is thus we get our terms ' honeycomb,' 'cockscomb,' ' haircomb,' &c. Few terms have connected themselves so much as this with the local nomenclature of our land, and few have made themselves so conspicuous in our directories. The writer I have just mentioned quotes a Cumberland poet, who says

There's Cumwhitton, Cumwhinton, Cumranton,
Cumrangan, Cumrew, and Cumcatch,

And mony mair Cums i' the County,
But nin wi' Cumdivock can match.

Of those compounds which have become surnames we cannot possibly recite all, but among the more common are 'Thorncombe' and 'Broadcombe,' 'Newcombe' and 'Morcombe,' 'Lipscombe' and 'Woolcombe,' 'Withecombe' and 'Buddicom,' and 'Slocombe.' We have already mentioned 'Amore.' The simple 'More,' or 'Moore,' is very familiar; 'atte Mor,' or ' de la More,' being the older forms. This has ever been a favourite name for punning rhymes. In the 'Book of Days,' several plays of this kind