Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

She come out of Sexlonde,

And rived here at Dovere,

That stondes upon the sees overe.

It seems to have been used generally to denote the flat-lands that lay about the sea-coast or rivers generally — what we should call in Scotland the links. I have already mentioned our 'Overends' as similar to our ' Townsends; ' 'Overman ' doubtless is but the more personal form of the same.'

Coming gradually to more definite traces of human habitation, we may mention some of our tree names. Of several, such as 'Nash,' and 'Nalder,' and Nokes,' we have already spoken. Such a name as 'Henry atte Beeche,' or 'Walter de la Lind,' or 'Richard atte Ok,' now found as simple 'Beech,' and 'Lind,' and 'Oake,' reminds us that we are not with-out further obligations to the tree world. Settling by or under the shade of some gigantic elm or oak, a sobriquet of this kind would be perfectly natural. As our 'Lyndhursts' and ' Lindleys' prove, ' lind' was once familiarly used for our now fuller ' linden.' Piers Plowman says:--

Blisse of the briddes

Broughte me aslepe,

And under a lynde

Upon a launde

Leaned I.

Were the Malvern dreamer describing poetically the birth and the origin of the future Swedish nightingale who four hundred years afterwards was to entrance the world with her song, he could not have been more

'William de Thornover' and 'Walter de Ashovere' will represent compound forms.LOCAL SURNAMES.

happy in his expression. Our 'Ashes ' and 'Birches,' once 'de la Byrche,' need little remark, but 'Birks,' the harder form of the latter, is not so familiar, though it is still preserved in such names as 'Birkenhead,' or ' Birkenshaw,' or 'Berkeley.' A small group of trees would be equally perspicuous. Thus have arisen our ' Twelvetrees,' and 'Fiveashes,' and 'Snooks,' a mere corruption of the Kentish 'Sevenoaks.' Mr. Lower mentions 'Quatrefages,' that is, 'four beeches,' as a corresponding instance in French nomenclature.

A common object in the country lane or by-path would be the gate or hatch that ran across the road to confine the deer. The old provincialism for this was 'yate.' We are told of Griselda in the 'Clerkes Tale ' that –.

With glad chere to the yate

she is gone

To grete the markisesse;

and Piers Plowman says our Lord came in through

Both dore and yates

To Peter and to these apostles.2

Our 'Yates,' written once 'Atte Y ate,' by their numbers can bear testimony to the familiarity with which this expression was once used. 'Byatt' I have just shown to be the same as 'Bygate,'and 'Woodyat' is but equivalent to 'Woodgate.'Other compounds are

1 Several local names of this class are found with 'tree' appended. Thus, 'Thomas Appletree' occurs in the Chancery suits of Elizabeth; and 'Crabtree,"Plumtree,'or 'Plumptree,'and 'Rowntree'(rowan-tree) may still be seen in our busiest streets.

2 In the 'Townley Mysteries,'Jacob, in his vision, is represented as saying:

'And now is here none othere gate

But Codes howse and hevens yate.'