Surname Origins, Their Source and Significations (1875)

'ale-house.' We still talk of the ' ale-stake,'that is, the public-house sign. Thus 'atten-ale' got corrupted into 'nale.'Chaucer, with many other writers, so uses it. In the 'Freres Tale' we are told how the Sompnour —

Maken him gret festes at the nale.

An old poem, too, says —

Robin will Gilot
Leden to the nale

And sitten there togedres
And tellen their tale.

Thus our forefathers used to talk alike of ' an ouch,'or ' a nouch,' for a jewel or setting of gold. Gower has it —

When thou bast taken any thynge

Of love's gifte, or nouche, or rynge.

Even now, I need scarcely remind my readers, we talk of a ' newt,' which is nothing but a contraction of ' an ewt' or 'eft,' and it is still a question whether 'nedder,' provincially used for 'an adder,'was not originally contracted in a similar manner. 'Nale,' or 'Nail,' thus locally derived, still lives in our directoriesas a surname.'

While 'atte' has been unquestionably the one chief prefix to these more familiar local terms, it is not the sole one that has left its mark. Our 'Bywaters' and 'Bywoods' are but the descendants of such mediaeval folk as 'Elias Bi-the-water,' or 'Edward

'A will, dated 1553, among other bequests mentions: 'Also to my flaw nt Bygott an old angell of golde.' The old angel, I need not say, refers to the coin, not the aunt. (Richmondshire Wills, p. 76.)

LOCAL SURNAMES.

By-the-wode,' and our 'Byfords,' 'Bytheseas,' and 'Bygates,' or 'Byatts,' are equally clearly the off-spring of some early ancestor who dwelt beside some streamlet shallow, or marine greensward, or woodlandhatchway.

In this pursuit after individuality, however, this was not the only method adopted. Another class of names arose from the somewhat contrary practice of appending to the place-word a termination equally significative of residence. This suffix was of two kinds, one ending in ' er,' the other in 'man.' Thus if the rustic householder dwelt in the meadows, he became known among his acquaintance as 'Robert the Fielder,' or 'Filder;'if under the greenwood shade, 'Woodyer,' or 'Woodyear,' or 'Woodman ' — relics of the old 'le Wodere ' and 'le Wodeman; ' if by the precincts of the sanctuary, 'Churcher' or 'Churchman' in the south of England, or 'Kirker' or 'Kirkman' in the north; if by some priory, 'Templer' or 'Templeman;' if by the village cross, 'Crosser,' or 'Crossman,' or 'Croucher,' or 'Crouch-man; ' if by the bridge, 'Bridger' or 'Bridgman; ' if by the brook, 'Brooker,' or 'Brookman,' or 'Becker,' or 'Beckman;' if by the well, the immortal 'Weller,' or 'Welman,' or 'Crossweller,'if, as was often the case, it lay beneath the roadside crucifix; if by some particular tree, 'Beecher,' once written ' le Beechar,' or 'Asher,' or 'Hollier,' or 'Holleyman,' or 'Oker,' and so on.

A certain number of names of the class we are now dwelling upon have arisen from a somewhat peculiar colloquial use of the term 'end' in vogue