Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

Itsold rival upon the Adriatic still vies with it in 'Veness,' once enrolled as 'de Venise.' Rome has given us our early 'Reginald le Romayns' and 'John le Romayns,' whose descendants now write their namesin the all but unaltered form of 'Romaine,' 'and to Lombardy and the Jews we owe Lombard street, and our ' Lombards,' 'Lumbards,' 'Lubbards,' and perhaps 'Lubbers' — not to mention our 'Luckes,' and 'Luckies,'a progenitor of whom I find inscribed in the Hundred Rolls as 'Luke of Lucca.' Advancing eastwards, a Martin le Hunne ' looks strangely as if sprung from a Hungarian source. Whatever doubt, however, there may be on this point, there can be none on 'William le Turc,'2 whose name is no solitary one in the recordsof the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and whose descendants are by no means extinct in the nineteenth.'Peter le Russe' would seem at first sight to be of Russian origin, especially with such a Christian name to the fore as the one above, but it is far more probably one more form of the endless corruptions of le Rous,' a sobriquet of complexion so extremely familiar to all who have spent any time over mediaevalregisters. I have already mentioned 'le Norrys' as connected with our 'Norris.' 'Dennis,' I doubt not, in some cases, is equally representative of the former le Daneys.' Entries like 'William le Norris,' or Walter le Norreis,' or 'Roger le Daneis,' or 'Joel le Deneys,' are of constant occurrence. These, added

1 Wicklyffe, in his preface to St. Paul's Epistle to the 'Romayns,'quotes St. Jerome, and adds, 'This saith Jerom in his prologe on this pistle to Romaynes.'

2 'Turk,' we must not forget, was a general term for anyone of the Mahommedan faith. It still lingers in that sense in the Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics of our Book of Common Prayer.

LOCAL SURNAMES.

to the others, may be mentioned as bringing before our eyes the broadest limits of European immigration, and with scarcely an exception they are found among the English surnames of to-day.

But we must not forget the Dutch — a term that once embraced all the German race.' 'Dutchman,' though I have found no instance in early rolls, is, I see, a denizen of our present directories, while ' Dutch-women,' found in the fourteenth century, is extinct. Our 'Pruces' are but the old 'le Pruce,' or Prussian, as we should now term them. The word is met with in an old political song, and, as it contains a list of articles, the introduction of which into England from Flanders made the two countries so closely connected, I will quote it fully:

Now beer and bacon bene fro Pruse i-brought

Into fflaunders, as loved and fere i-soughte;

Osmonde, coppre; bowstaffes, stile and wex,

Peltre-ware, and grey, pych, tar, borde, and flex,

And Coleyne threde, fustiane, and canvase,

Corde, bokeram, of old tyme thus it wase.

But the fflemmynges among these things dere,

Incomen loven beste bacon and beer.

'Fleming,' as our registers prove, was seemingly the popular term for all the Low Countrymen, bands of whom were specially invited over by two of our kings to spread their industry in our own land. Numbers of them came in, however, as simple wool-merchants,

1 Thus we find Bishop Coverdale, in his Prologue to the New Testament, written 1535, saying, 'And to help me herein I have had sundry translations, not only in Latin, but also of the Dutch interpreters, whom, because of their singular gifts and special diligence in the Bible, I have been the more glad to follow.' (Park: Soc. p. 12.) Here he is manifestly speaking of the German reformers.