I accept the early demand for a new edition of my book, not so much as proof of the value of my individual work, as of the increased interest which is being taken in this too much neglected subject. In deference to the wholesome advice of many reviewers, both in the London and Provincial press, especially that of the ‘Times’ and the ‘AthenÆum,’ I have re-arranged the whole of the chapters on ‘Patronymics’ and ‘Nicknames,’ subdividing the same under convenient heads. By so doing the names which bear any particular relationship to one another will be found more closely allied than they were under their former more general treatment.
My book has met with much criticism, partly favourable, partly adverse, from different quarters. To my reviewers in general I offer my best thanks for their comments. The ‘Saturday Review’—and I say it the more readily as they will see that I have not been insensible to the value of their criticism—has not, I think, sufficiently understood the nature of my work. I am well aware that praise is due to them for having for some length of time strenuously advocated the claim of our language to be English through all its varying stages. I do not see that in the general character of my book I have lost sight of this fact. An ‘English Directory’ is not an ‘English Dictionary.’ The influences that have been at work on our language are not the same as those upon our nomenclature. Every social casualty had an effect upon our names which it could not have upon our words. The names found in Domesday Book, casting aside the new importation, were, in the great majority of cases, obsolete by the end of the twelfth century, and of those which have survived and descended to us as surnames, well-nigh all are devoid of diminutive or patronymic desinences—a clear proof that they were utterly out of fashion as personal names during the era of surname formation. The Norman invasion was not a conquest of our language, but it was of our nomenclature. The ‘Saturday Review’ may still demand that we shall view all as English, and obliterate the distinctive terms of Saxon and Norman, but in doing so let us not forget facts. The language which preceded the Norman Conquest is still the vehicle of ordinary converse. The nomenclature of that period went down like Pharaoh’s chariot, and like Pharaoh’s chariot, which for all I know lies where it did, was never recovered.
A review in the ‘Guardian’ demands a brief notice on account of the mischief it may do. The end kept in view by the reviewer is as transparent as his inability to reach it. Surely the day is past for any further attempt to make out that we have no metronymic surnames. The writer is evidently unaware of the fact that the use of ‘ie’ and ‘y,’ as in ‘Teddy’ or ‘Johnnie,’ in the nineteenth century, does not prevail to as great an extent as that of ‘ot’ and ‘et’ from the twelfth to the fifteenth. As ‘Philip’ became ‘Philipot,’ now ‘Philpott’; as ‘William,’ ‘Williamot,’ now ‘Wilmott’; as ‘Hew’ (or Hugh), ‘Hewet’ and ‘Hewetson’; as ‘Ellis’ (or Elias), ‘Elliot’ and ‘Elliotson’; so ‘Till’ (Matilda) became ‘Tillot’ and ‘Tillotson’; ‘Emme’ (Emma), ‘Emmott,’ ‘Emmett,’ and ‘Emmotson’; ‘Ibbe’ (Isabella), ‘Ibbott,’ ‘Ibbett,’ and ‘Ibbotson’; ‘Mary,’ ‘Mariot’ and ‘Marriott’; and ‘Siss’ (Cecilia), ‘Sissot’ and ‘Sissotson.’ ‘Emmot,’ the writer says, is a form of ‘Amyas,’ I suppose because he saw ‘Amyot’ in Miss Yonge’s glossary. According to him, therefore, Emmot is a masculine name. How comes it to pass, then, that Emmot is always Latinised as Emmota, or that in our old marriage licences ‘Richard de Akerode’ gets a dispensation to marry ‘Emmotte de Greenwood’ (Test. Ebor. iii. 317), or ‘Roger Prestwick’ to marry ‘Emmote Crossley’ (ditto, 338)? How is it we meet with such entries as ‘Cissota West,’ (Index) or ‘Syssot that was wife of Patrick’ (69)? How is it again that Mariot is registered as ‘Mariota in le Lane,’ or ‘John fil. MariotÆ,’ and Ibbot or Ibbet as ‘Ibbota fil. AdÆ,’ or ‘Robert fil. IbotÆ,’ (Index)? The fact is, we have a large class of metronymics many of which doubtless arose from posthumous birth, or from adoption, or the more important character of the mother in the eyes of the neighbours than the father, others too from illegitimacy.
Amongst other errors for which I have been called to account, the oddest is that of attributing to Miss Muloch the authorship of Miss Yonge’s most useful and laborious work on Christian names. I do not know to which lady I owe the deepest apology—whether to Miss Yonge for robbing her literary crown of one of its brightest jewels, or to Miss Muloch for appearing to insinuate that hers was incomplete. This and several other mistakes of less moment I have rectified in the present edition.
I have to thank the authoress of ‘Mistress Margery,’ etc., for the names in the index marked QQ., RR. 1, RR. 2, and RR. 3. Such entries from the registry of St. James’s, Piccadilly (QQ.), as ‘Repentance Tompson’ (1688), ‘Loving Bell’ (1693), ‘Nazareth Rudde’ (1695), ‘Obedience Clerk’ (1697), or ‘Unity Thornton’ (1703), may be set beside the instances recorded on pp. 102–104. To these I would take this opportunity of adding ‘Comfort Starre,’ ‘Hopestill Foster,’ ‘Love Brewster,’ ‘Fear Brewster,’ ‘Patience Brewster,’ ‘Remembrance Tibbott,’ ‘Remember Allerton,’ ‘Desire Minter,’ ‘Original Lewis,’ and ‘Thankes Sheppard,’ all being names of emigrants from England in the 17th century. (Vide Hotten’s ‘Original Lists of Persons of Quality.’)
February 1875.
