THE PET-NAME EPOCH IN ENGLAND.

I. The Paucity of Names after the Conquest.

There were no Scripture names in England when the Conqueror took possession; even in Normandy they had appeared but a generation or two before William came over. If any are found in the old English period, we may feel assured they were ecclesiastic titles, adopted at ordination. Greek and Latin saints were equally unnoticed.

It is hard to believe the statement I have made. Before many generations had passed, Bartholomew, Simon, Peter, Philip, Thomas, Nicholas, John, and Elias, had engrossed a third of the male population; yet Domesday Book has no Philip, no Thomas, only one Nicholas, and but a sprinkling of Johns. It was not long before Jack and Jill took the place of Godric and Godgivu as representative of the English sexes, yet Jack was from the Bible, and Jill from the saintly Calendar.

Without entering into a deep discussion, we may say that the great mass of the old English names had gone down before the year 1200 had been reached. Those that survived only held on for bare existence. From the moment of William’s advent, the names of the Norman began to prevail. He brought in Bible names, Saint names, and his own Teutonic names. The old English names bowed to them, and disappeared.

A curious result followed. From the year 1150 to 1550, four hundred years in round numbers, there was a very much smaller dictionary of English personal names than there had been for four hundred years before, and than there has been in the four hundred years since. The Norman list was really a small one, and yet it took possession of the whole of England.

A consequence of this was the Pet-name Epoch. In every community of one hundred Englishmen about the year 1300, there would be an average of twenty Johns and fifteen Williams; then would follow Thomas, Bartholomew, Nicholas, Philip, Simon, Peter, and Isaac from the Scriptures, and Richard, Robert, Walter, Henry, Guy, Roger, and Baldwin from the Teutonic list. Of female names, Matilda, Isabella, and Emma were first favourites, and Cecilia, Catharine, Margaret, and Gillian came closely upon their heels. Behind these, again, followed a fairly familiar number of names of either sex, some from the Teuton, some from the Hebrew, some from the Greek and Latin Church, but, when all told, not a large category.

It was, of course, impossible for Englishmen and Englishwomen to maintain their individuality on these terms. Various methods to secure a personality arose. The surname was adopted, and there were John Atte-wood, John the Wheelwright, John the Bigg, and John Richard’s son, in every community. Among the middle and lower classes these did not become hereditary till so late as 1450 or 1500.[1] This was not enough, for in common parlance it was not likely the full name would be used. Besides, there might be two, or even three, Johns in the same family. So late as March, 1545, the will of John Parnell de Gyrton runs:

The register of Raby, Leicestershire, has this entry:

Mr. Burns, who quotes these instances in his “History of Parish Registers,” adds that at this same time “one John Barker had three sons named John Barker, and two daughters named Margaret Barker.”[2]

If the same family had but one name for the household, we may imagine the difficulty when this one name was also popular throughout the village. The difficulty was naturally solved by, firstly, the adoption of nick forms; secondly, the addition of pet desinences. Thus Emma became by the one practice simple Emm, by the other Emmott; and any number of boys in a small community might be entered in a register as Bartholomew, and yet preserve their individuality in work-a-day life by bearing such names as Bat, Bate, Batty, Bartle, Bartelot, Batcock, Batkin, and Tolly, or Tholy. In a word, these several forms of Bartholomew were treated as so many separate proper names.

No one would think of describing Wat Tyler’s—we should now say Walter Tyler’s—insurrection as Gowen does:

“Watte vocat, cui Thoma venit, neque Symme retardat,
Bat—que Gibbe simul, Hykke venire subent:
Colle furit, quem Bobbe juvat, nocumenta parantes,
Cum quibus, ad damnum Wille coire volat—
Crigge rapit, dum Davie strepit, comes est quibus Hobbe,
Larkin et in medio non minor esse putat:
Hudde ferit, quem Judde terit, dum Tibbe juvatur
Jacke domosque viros vellit, en ense necat.”

These names, taken in order, are Walter, Thomas, Simon, Bartholomew, Gilbert, Isaac, Nicholas, Robert, William, Gregory, David, Robert (2), Lawrence, Hugh, Jordan (or George), Theobald, and John.

Another instance will be evidence enough. The author of “Piers Plowman” says—

“Then goeth Glutton in, and grete other after,
Cesse, the sonteresse, sat on the bench:
Watte, the warner, and his wife bothe:
Tymme, the tynkere, and twayne of his prentices:
Hikke, the hackney man, and Hugh, the pedlere,
Clarice, of Cokkeslane, and the clerke of the churche:
Dawe, the dykere, and a dozen othere.”

Taken in their order, these nick forms represent Cecilia, Walter, Timothy, Isaac, Clarice, and David. It will be seen at a glance that such appellatives are rare, by comparison, in the present day. Tricks of this kind were not to be played with Bible names at the Reformation, and the new names from that time were pronounced, with such exceptions as will be detailed hereafter, in their fulness.

To speak of William and John is to speak of a race and rivalry 800 years old. In Domesday there were 68 Williams, 48 Roberts, 28 Walters, to 10 Johns. Robert Montensis asserts that in 1173, at a court feast of Henry II., Sir William St. John and Sir William Fitz-Hamon bade none but those who bore the name of William to appear. There were present 120 Williams, all knights. In Edward I.’s reign John came forward. In a Wiltshire document containing 588 names, 92 are William, 88 John, 55 Richard, 48 Robert, 23 Roger, Geoffrey, Ralph, and Peter 16. A century later John was first. In 1347, out of 133 common councilmen for London, first convened, 35 were John, 17 William, 15 Thomas, (St. Thomas of Canterbury was now an institution), 10 Richard, 8 Henry, 8 Robert. In 1385 the Guild of St. George at Norwich contained 377 names. Of these, John engrossed no less than 128, William 47, Thomas 41. The Reformation and the Puritan Commonwealth for a time darkened the fortunes of John and William, but the Protestant accession befriended the latter, and now, as 800 years ago, William is first and John second.But when we come to realize that nearly one-third of Englishmen were known either by the name of William or John about the year 1300, it will be seen that the pet name and nick form were no freak, but a necessity. We dare not attempt a category, but the surnames of to-day tell us much. Will was quite a distinct youth from Willot, Willot from Wilmot, Wilmot from Wilkin, and Wilkin from Wilcock. There might be half a dozen Johns about the farmstead, but it mattered little so long as one was called Jack, another Jenning, a third Jenkin, a fourth Jackcock (now Jacox as a surname), a fifth Brownjohn, and a sixth Micklejohn, or Littlejohn, or Properjohn (i.e. well built or handsome).

The nick forms are still familiar in many instances, though almost entirely confined to such names as have descended from that day to the present. We still talk of Bob, and Tom, and Dick, and Jack. The introduction of Bible names at the Reformation did them much harm. But the Reformation, and the English Bible combined, utterly overwhelmed the pet desinences, and they succumbed. Emmot and Hamlet lived till the close of the seventeenth century, but only because they had ceased to be looked upon as altered forms of old favourite names, and were entered in vestry books on their own account as orthodox proper names.

II. Pet Forms.

These pet desinences were of four kinds.

(a) Kin.

The primary sense of kin seems to have been relationship: from thence family, or offspring. The phrases “from generation to generation,” or “from father to son,” in “Cursor Mundi” find a briefer expression:

“This writte was gett fra kin to kin,
That best it cuth to haf in min.”

The next meaning acquired by kin was child, or “young one.” We still speak in a diminutive sense of a manikin, kilderkin, pipkin, lambkin, jerkin, minikin (little minion), or doitkin. Appended to baptismal names it became very familiar. “A litul soth Sermun” says—

“Nor those prude yongemen
That loveth Malekyn,
And those prude maydenes
That loveth Janekyn:
····
Masses and matins
Ne kepeth they nouht,
For Wilekyn and Watekyn
Be in their thouht.”

Unquestionably the incomers from Brabant and Flanders, whether as troopers or artisans, gave a great impulse to the desinence. They tacked it on to everything:

“Rutterkin can speke no Englyssh,
His tongue runneth all on buttyred fyssh,
Besmeared with grece abowte his dysshe
Like a rutter hoyda.”

They brought in Hankin, and Han-cock, from Johannes; not to say Baudkin, or Bodkin, from Baldwin. Baudechon le Bocher in the Hundred Rolls, and Simmerquin Waller, lieutenant of the Castle of Harcourt in “Wars of the English in France,” look delightfully Flemish.

Hankin is found late:

“Thus for her love and loss poor Hankin dies,
His amorous soul down flies.”
“Musarum DeliciÆ,” 1655.

To furnish a list of English names ending in kin would be impossible. The great favourites were Hopkin (Robert),[3] Lampkin and Lambkin (Lambert), Larkin (Lawrence), Tonkin (Antony), Dickin, Stepkin (Stephen),[4] Dawkin (David), Adkin,[5] now Atkin (Adam, not Arthur), Jeffkin (Jeffrey), Pipkin and Potkin (Philip), Simkin, Tipkin (Theobald), Tomkin, Wilkin, Watkin (Walter), Jenkin, Silkin (Sybil),[6] Malkin (Mary), Perkin (Peter), Hankin (Hans), and Halkin or Hawkin (Henry). Pashkin or Paskin reminds us of Pask or Pash, the old baptismal name for children born at Easter. Judkin (now as a surname also Juckin) was the representative of Judd, that is, Jordan. George afterwards usurped the place. All these names would be entered in their orthodox baptismal style in all formal records. But here and there we get free and easy entries, as for instance:

Malkin was one of the few English female names with this appendage. Some relics of this form of Mary still remain. Malkin in Shakespeare is the coarse scullery wench:

“The kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram ’bout her reechy neck,
Clambering the walls to eye him.”
“Coriolanus,” Act ii. sc. 1.

While the author of the “Anatomy of Melancholy” is still more unkind, for he says—

From a drab Malkin became a scarecrow. Hence Chaucer talks of “malkin-trash.” As if this were not enough, malkin became the baker’s clout to clean ovens with. Thus, as Jack took the name of the implements Jack used, as in boot-jack, so by easy transitions Malkin. The last hit was when Grimalkin (that is, grey-malkin) came to be the cant term for an old worn-out quean cat. Hence the witch’s name in “Macbeth.”

It will be seen at a glance why Malkin is the only name of this class that has no place among our surnames.[7] She had lost character. I have suggested, in “English Surnames,” that Makin, Meakin, and Makinson owe their origin to either Mary or Maud. I would retract that supposition. There can be little doubt these are patronymics of Matthew, just as is Maycock or Meacock. Maykinus Lappyng occurs in “Materials for a History of Henry VII.,” and the Maykina Parmunter of the Hundred Rolls is probably but a feminine form. The masculine name was often turned into a feminine, but I have never seen an instance of the reverse order.

Terminations in kin were slightly going down in popular estimation, when the Hebrew invasion made a clean sweep of them. They found shelter in Wales, however, and our directories preserve in their list of surnames their memorial for ever.[8]

(b) Cock.

The term “cock” implied pertness: especially the pertness of lusty and swaggering youth. To cock up the eye, or the hat, or the tail, a haycock in a field, a cock-robin in the wood, and a cock-horse in the nursery, all had the same relationship of meaning—brisk action, pert demonstrativeness. The barn-door cockerel was not more cockapert than the boy in the scullery that opened upon the yard where both strutted. Hence any lusty lad was “Cock,” while such fuller titles as Jeff-cock, or Sim-cock, or Bat-cock gave him a preciser individuality. The story of “Cocke Lorelle” is a relic of this; while the prentice lad in “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” acted at Christ College, Cambridge, in 1566, goes by the only name of “Cock.” Tib the servant wench says to Hodge, after the needle is gone—

“My Gammer is so out of course, and frantic all at once,
That Cock our boy, and I, poor wench, have felt it on our bones.”

By-and-by Gammer calls the lad to search:

“Come hither, Cock: what, Cock, I say.
Cock.How, Gammer?
Gammer. Go, hie thee soon: and grope behind the old brass pan.”

Such terms as nescock, meacock, dawcock, pillicock, or lobcock may be compounds—unless they owe their origin to “cockeney,” a spoiled, home-cherished lad. In “Wit without Money” Valentine says—

“For then you are meacocks, fools, and miserable.”

In “Appius and Virginia” (1563) Mausipula says (Act i. sc. 1)—

“My lady’s great business belike is at end,
When you, goodman dawcock, lust for to wend.”In “King Lear”

“Pillicock sat on pillicock-hill”

seems an earlier rendering of the nursery rhyme—

“Pillicock, Pillicock sate on a hill,
If he’s not gone, he sits there still.”

In “Wily Beguiled” Will Cricket says to Churms—

These words have their value in proving how familiarly the term cock was employed in forming nicknames. That it should similarly be appended to baptismal names, especially the nick form of Sim, Will, or Jeff, can therefore present no difficulty.

Cock was almost as common as “kin” as a desinence. Sim-cock was Simcock to the end of his days, of course, if his individuality had come to be known by the name.

Adecock is Adam, and Mocock or Mokock is Matthew. In the same way Sander-cock is a diminutive of Sander, Lay-cock of Lawrence, Luccock of Luke, Pidcock and Peacock of Peter, Maycock and Mycock of Matthew, Jeff-cock of Jeffrey, Johncock of John, Hitch-cock or Hiscock or Heacock of Higg or Hick (Isaac), Elcock of Ellis, Hancock or Handcock of Han or Hand (Dutch John), Drocock or Drewcock of Drew, Wilcock of William, Badcock or Batcock of Bartholomew, and Bawcock of Baldwin, Adcock or Atcock of Adam, Silcock of Silas, and Palcock of Paul:

The difficulty of identification was manifestly lessened in a village or town where Bate could be distinguished from Batkin, and Batkin from Batcock. Hence, again, the common occurrence of such a component as cock. This diminutive is never seen in the seventeenth century; and yet we have many evidences of its use in the beginning of the sixteenth. The English Bible, with its tendency to require the full name as a matter of reverence, while it supplied new names in the place of the old ones that were accustomed to the desinence, caused this. It may be, too, that the new regulation of Cromwell in 1538, requiring the careful registration of all baptized children, caused parents to lay greater stress on the name as it was entered in the vestry-book.Any way, the sixteenth century saw the end of names terminating in “cock.”

(c.) On or In.

A dictionary instance is “violin,” that is, a little viol, a fiddle of four strings, instead of six. This diminutive, to judge from the Paris Directory, must have been enormously popular with our neighbours. Our connection with Normandy and France generally brought the fashion to the English Court, and in habits of this kind the English folk quickly copied their superiors. Terminations in kin and cock were confined to the lower orders first and last. Terminations in on or in, and ot or et, were the introduction of fashion, and being under patronage of the highest families in the land, naturally obtained a much wider popularity.

Our formal registers, again, are of little assistance. Beton is coldly and orthodoxly Beatrice or Beatrix in the Hundred Rolls. Only here and there can we gather that Beatrice was never so called in work-a-day life. In “Piers Plowman” it is said—

“Beton the Brewestere
Bade him good morrow.”

And again, later on:

“And bade Bette cut a bough,
And beat Betoun therewith.”If Alice is Alice in the registrar’s hands, not so in homely Chaucer:

“This Alison answered: Who is there
That knocketh so? I warrant him a thefe.”

Or take an old Yorkshire will:

Hugh, too, gets his name familiarly entered occasionally:

Huggins in our directories is the memorial of this. But in the north of England Hutchin was a more popular form. In the “Wappentagium de Strafford” occurs—

Also—

that is, Ellen the servant of Houchon. Our Hutchinsons are all north of Trent folk. Thus, too, Peter (Pier) became Perrin:

Marion, from Mary, is the only familiar instance that has descended to us, and no doubt we owe this fact to Maid Marion, the May-lady. Many a Mary Ann, in these days of double baptismal names, perpetuates the impression that Marion or Marian was compounded of Mary and Ann.

Of familiar occurrence were such names as Perrin, from Pierre, Peter; Robin and Dobbin, from Rob and Dob, Robert; Colin, from Col, Nicholas; Diccon, from Dick, Richard; Huggin, from Hugh; Higgin, from Hick or Higg, Isaac; Figgin, from Figg, Fulke;[9] Phippin, from Phip and Philip; and Gibbin, or Gibbon, or Gilpin, from Gilbert. Every instance proves the debt our surnames have incurred by this practice.

Several cases are obscured by time and bad pronunciation. Our Tippings should more rightly be Tippins, originally Tibbins, from Tibbe (Theobald); our Collinges and Collings, Collins; and our Gibbings, Gibbins. Our Jennings should be Jennins; Jennin Caervil was barber to the Earl of Suffolk in the French wars (“Wars of England in France,” Henry VI.). Robing had early taken the place of Robin:

Such entries as Raoulin Meriel and Raoul Partrer (this Raoul was private secretary to Henry VI.) remind us of the former popularity of Ralph and of the origin of our surnames Rawlins and Rawlinson:

Here again, however, the “in” has become “ing,” for Rawlings is even more common than Rawlins. Deccon and Dickin have got mixed, and both are now Dickens, although Dicconson exists as distinct from Dickinson. Spenser knew the name well:

The London Directory contains Lamming and Laming. Alongside are Lampin, Lamin, and Lammin. These again are more correct, all being surnames formed from Lambin, a pet form of Lambert:

“Willelmus Lambyn, et Alicia uxor ejus, iiii^d.”—W. D. S.