Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

as they are of such mediaeval folk as 'Roger le Estrange' or 'Roger le Straunge.'There was 'Roger the Cooper' and 'Roger the Cheesemonger' round the corner close to the market cross, and 'Roger atte Ram,' so, of course, this new-comer as distinguished from them was 'Roger the Straunge' or 'Strange,' and once so known, the more familiar he became, the more 'Strange' he became, though this may seem somewhat of a paradox. Thus, too, have arisen our 'Strangers' and 'Strangemans.'These, however, are the general terms. To quote a name like 'Robert de Eastham ' or 'William de Sutton' is, as it were, to take up the plug from a never-ceasing fountain. We are thrown upon a list of sobriquets to which there is no tether. Take up a subscription paper, look over a list of speakers at a farmers' dinner, scan the names of the clergy at a ministerial conference, all will possess a fair average of this class of surnames, early wanderers from one village to another, Saxons fresh escaped from serfdom seeking a livelihood in a new district, Norman trades-men or retainers pushing forward for fresh positions and fresh gains in fresh fields. It is through the frequency of these has arisen the old couplet quoted by Verstigan

In 'Ford,' in 'Ham,' in 'Ley,'in 'Ton,'

The most of English surnames run.

There is probably no village or hamlet in England which has not subscribed in this manner to the sum total of our nomenclature. It is this which is so tell-tale of the present, for while a small rural spot like, say ' Debenham,' in Suffolk, or 'Ashford,' in Derby-

LOCAL SURNAMES.

shire, will have its score of representatives, a solitary 'Richard de Lyverpole,' or 'Guido de Mancestre,' or ' John de Burmyngham' will be all we can find to represent such large centres of population as Manchester, or Liverpool, or Birmingham. Mushroom-like they sprang up but yesterday, while for centuries these insignificant hamlets have pursued the even tenorof their way, somewhat disturbed, it may have been, from their equanimity four or five centuries agone, by the announcement that Ralph or Miles was about to leave them, and who, by thus becoming 'Ralph de Debenham' or Miles de Ashford,' have given to the world to the end of time the story of their early departure.

In the same class with the village names of England must we set our county surnames. These are of course but an insignificant number set by their brethren, still we must not pass them by without a word. In the present day, if we were to speak of a man in connexion with his county, we should say he was a Derbyshire or a Lancashire man, as the case might be. That they did this five or six hundred years ago is evidenced by the existence of these very names in our midst. Thus we can point in our records to such designations as 'John Hamshire,' or 'Adam de Kent,' or 'Richard de Wiltshire,' or 'Geoffrey de Cornwayle.' Still this was not the only form of county nomenclature. The Normans, I suspect it was, who introduced another. We have still 'Kentish' and Devonish' and 'Cornish' to represent the 'William le Kentish's,'or 'John le Devoneis's,' or 'Margery le Cornyshe's,'of their early rolls; and