Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

the thirteenth century. It is quite possible that our Langleys ' are in some instances but a corruption of this name. Thus the different quarters of the British Empire are well personified so far as our directories are concerned.

We have not quite done with the home country, however. Our modern 'Norris's' are of a somewhat comprehensive nature. In the first place there can be little doubt they have become confounded by lapse of time with the once not unfamiliar ' la Noryce,' or nurse. Apart from this, too, the term 'le Noreys' was ever applied in early times to the Norwegians, and to this sense mainly it is that we owe the rise of the name. And yet it has another origin. It was used in the mere sense of ' northern,' one from the north country. Thus in the Hundred Rolls we meet with the two names of 'Thomas le Noreys' and 'Geoffrey le Northern,' and there is no reason why these should not both have had the same rise. A proof in favour of this view lies in the fact that we have their counterparts in such entries as 'Thomas le Surreys' and 'Thomas le Southern,' the latter now found in the other forms of 'Sothern' and 'Sotheran.' Nor are the other points of the compass wanting. A 'Richard le Westrys ' and a 'Richard le Estrys' both occur in the registers of the thirteenth century, but neither, I believe, now exists. 'North' found as 'de North' needs no explanation, and the same can be said for our 'Souths,' 'Easts,' and 'Wests.'

The distance from Dover to Calais is not great; but were it otherwise, we should still feel bound in our notice of names of foreign introduction first of allto mention Normandy. For not merely has this

LOCAL SURNAMES.

country supplied us with many of our best family names, but it enjoys the distinction of having been the first to establish an hereditary surname. This it did in the case of the barons and their feudary settlements. The close of the eleventh century we may safely say saw as yet but one class of sobriquets, which, together with their other property, fathers werein the habit of handing down to their sons. This class was local, and was attached only to those followers of the Conqueror who had been presented by their leader with landed estates in the country they had but recently subdued. As a rule each of these feudatories took as his surname the place whence he hadset forth in his Norman home. Thus arose so many of our sobriquets of which 'Burke's Peerage' is the bestdirectory, and of which therefore I have little to say here. Thus arose the 'de Mortimers' (the prefix was retained for many generations by all), the ' de Colevilles,' the ' de Corbets,' the 'de Ferrers,' the 'de Beauchamps,' the 'de Courcys,' the 'de Lucys,' and the 'de Granvilles.'Thus have sprung our ' Harcourts,' our 'Tankervilles,' our 'Nevilles,' our Bovilles,' our 'Baskervilles,' our 'Lascelles,' our ' Beaumonts,'our 'Villiers,'our 'Mohuns,' and our 'Percys.' Apropos of Granville, a story is told of a former Lord Lyttelton con-testing with the head of that stock priority of family, and clenching his argument by asserting his to be necessarily the most ancient, inasmuch as the little-town must have existed before the grand-ville. A similar dispute is said to have occurred at Venice between the families 'Ponti' and 'Canali' — the one asserting that the 'Bridges ' were above the 'Canals,' the other that the 'Canals' were in existence before