I said in my last chapter that nearly half of the names in the London Directory are of local origin, and I proved my statement by an appeal to certain figures. We have not all the brand of Cain on our brow, but certainly man has ever been “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.” History, sacred and profane, teems with the records of the flights of nations from one land to another. From the days of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt to the flight of the Huguenots from France, there have been emigrations which have been the direct results of persecution. From the year that saw Babel erected and the language confounded, the races of mankind have struck out a path for themselves in one direction or another of the earth’s vast continent. The curious feature is this,—It is to the dictionary we must go to discover whence each several horde set forth. The language of every nation clearly tells where lies the cradle of its birth.

But emigration and immigration lie not alone with nationalities. The world has not always been a vagabond en masse. From the day that Jacob started for the East to find his uncle, from the morn that saw Ruth clinging to Naomi, while she said, “Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge,” there has ever been going on a wondrous silent efflux or influx of individual wanderers. Just as the mother-bird at the proper time, with seeming stern but true maternal instinct, pushes out her fledgling brood to seek a home and sustenance for themselves, so it has ever been with man. To go forth and replenish the earth has been a Divine fiat which none could forego. And what the dictionary is to the nation, the directory is to the individual. In the name of each we know the land, the city, the hamlet, whence each set forward to battle with the world. At any rate, this is strictly true of all local surnames.

In the course of the last six hundred years there has not been a single village or town in England that has not found its representative in London. “All roads lead to the capital,” says an old proverb. How true this is, the London Directory shows; for at this moment it would be hard to mention a place, big or small, from John o’ Groats to Land’s End,—the Dan and Beersheba of England,—whose name is not found therein as the title of some individual whose ancestor, long generations ago, left his native home to settle in what was, even then, the big city. I was struck the other day by seeing two shops adjacent, the shopkeepers’ names on the doors being “Dearnally” and “Dennerley.” Dearnally and Dennerley! What a curious circumstance! My mind went back six centuries, and I wove a little story. Six hundred years ago, two brothers, or schoolfellows, or playmates, leave the little secluded hamlet of Dearnley. [43] One is John, the other William. John goes to Bristol. “Whence come you?” say his Bristol associates. “From Dearnley,” he replies. Henceforward he is John o’ Dearnley, by-and-by to become simple John Dearnley. “Whence come you?” says a Norwich artisan to William, who has turned his steps eastwards. “From Dearnley: I wonder shall I see it again,” responds William, sadly, who is already home-sick,—for homes were homes then as well as now. Henceforth he is William o’ Dearnley, or Will Dearnley. Each marries, has children, dies. His descendants, bearing his name, are scattered hither and thither over the broad land, like leaves before the cold keen blast of an October wind. Corruptions of the name of course ensue. The descendants of John are “Dearnally”; of William “Dennerley.” Centuries after this, in the year of grace 1877, one of John’s generation, who has found his way to a big city, sees a new house, takes it, is a grocer, and inscribes his name Dearnally above. In the meantime another stranger is eyeing a contiguous shop in the same block of buildings. “Fine opening for a butcher here,” says he to himself: “I will take these premises.” He does so. Up goes his name. What is it? Dennerley! Thus, after long years, nay, centuries, two descendants of the two playfellows, probably brothers, are to be seen dwelling together, each ignorant that when he wishes his neighbour good morning, he is rejoining links in a chain snapped, oh, so long ago! The invisible destinies of God have recovered the lost associations of twenty generations! Said I not, the London Directory is a romance?

I have selected this story for a purpose. It explains the origin of every local surname in existence. A man, in a new community to which he had joined himself, might go by the name of his occupation, as “Tinker,” or father’s Christian name, as “Peterson,” or by a nickname from his social habits, as “Good-fellow”; but in five cases out of ten he bore the title of the spot whence he issued forth. Take a few instances of the mode and manner in which these local surnames were formed. All my illustrations shall be from the London Directory. For perspicuity’s sake I will separate them into classes.

(a) Local names terminating in “er” and “man.” “Churchman” would seem to bespeak the original possessor an Episcopalian. But there was no dissent in the twelfth or thirteenth century. It could give no individuality as such. It was a local name, implying that John or Peter Churchman dwelt by the church. Hence also “Churcher.” In the north, “Church” was pronounced “Kirk.” Therefore, in the north these two names are found as “Kirkman” and “Kirker,”—exactly as we find “Thacker” in Yorkshire to be “Thatcher” in Surrey. Of this same class are Crosser and Crossman, reminding us that there was a time in pre-Reformation days when every village had its cross, which was as much a landmark as it was an object of reverence. Bridger and Bridgman lived beside the wooden or stone structure that spanned the stream.

(b) Some local names still preserve the affix or suffix corresponding to the French “del,” “de,” “du,” and “de la,” as Atwood, Atwater, and Atwell, once William at the wood, or at the water, or at the well. By is found in Bywater, and Bythesea. Sometimes the letter “n” got in for euphony’s sake, as in “Nash,” which is sprung from “atten-ash.” “Thomas atte-n-ash” thus became Thomas Nash. Hence Nolt for atte-n-holt (i.e. wood), or Nalder for “Alder.” Townsend is from Town’s-end. Thus Peter at the Town’s-end becomes Peter Townsend, or Townshend. “Tash” is from “at the Ash”; and Thynne, a name belonging to one of our ennobled families, is said to be from one “John at the Inne.”

(c) Most of these generic names have dropped all suffixes and affixes. Here a hundred surnames present themselves to our eye. Who does not know a Hill or Dale, a Field or Croft? Who has not a friend called Craig or Cliff, or Dean or Hope? Who has not met with a Grange or Moor, or Wood or Shaw? Our “Streets” are as thick as Our “Lanes,” and in the busiest thoroughfares of London you may descry Barnes and Marshes and Parks and Forests and Warrens without end. The village spring has given us our “Wells,” the village road our “Crosses,” and the village common has given us our “Greens.” The following was addressed to a Miss Green on her fortieth birthday:—

“That evergreen thy graces show;
Some men say ‘Yes,’ and some say ‘No.’
Alas! that one and all agree
That ever-Green thy name shall be!”

Greener is common, being formed after the fashion of Knowler and Knowlman, and Streeter and Streetman, (vide under “a”). A Mr. Greener being devoted admirer of a Miss Green, wrote as follows:—

“One dearest wish I fondly cherish,
My ever-Green so fair, yet lonely:
To make thee mine, and thus thou’lt flourish
Greener, and Greener only.”

To which she responded,—

“I’m Green indeed; but Greener thou,
To think by love declarative,
To make me change charms positive
For those at best comparative.”

Flood and Fell belong to this same class, except when Flood is Welsh, and then, like Floyd, it is the same as Lloyd. A Mr. Isaac Fell is said to have had painted over his shop, in very legible characters, “I. Fell, from Ludgate Hill”; beneath which, one day, a Shakspearian wag wrote, “O what a fall was there, my countrymen!” We have mentioned “Dean” above. In composition it generally appears as “den,” and implies a sheltered and sunken glade closely surrounded with trees. Hence it was a covert for cattle and wild beasts, and many of the names we now see bear out the fact. Not merely do we talk of a “den of lions,” but we descry dens of “hogs,” “rams,” “oxen,” “kine,” and even “wolves,” in such surnames as Ogden, Ramsden, Oxenden, Cowden, and Wolvenden. Other compounds of “den” are not so easily discernible. What Heberden may mean I do not know. There is still in the Directory one Heberden, a physician. Probably it was his father, or grandfather, one of three great London doctors in George the Third’s reign, of whom the sixain got abroad:—

“You should send, if aught should ail ye,
For Willis, Heberden, or Baillie:
All exceeding skilful men,
Baillie, Willis, Heberden:
Uncertain which most sure to kill is,
Baillie, Heberden, or Willis.”

But Moore or “More,” or “Moor,” represented until late in London by George Moore, whose like we do not expect to see soon again, has been a butt for the shafts of wit for generations. We could fill the remaining pages of this chapter with “torts and retorts” upon this sobriquet. Lorenzo, in the Merchant of Venice, says, “It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I took her for;” to which Launcelot replies irately, “How every fool can play upon the word!” But some of these epigrams are not fools’ work, nevertheless. When Sir Thomas More was Chancellor, his untiring devotion to his office brought a conclusion to all the Chancery cases in litigation. The following got abroad:—

“When More some years had Chancellor been,
No more suits did remain;
The same shall never more be seen,
Till More be there again.”

When Dr. Manners-Sutton succeeded Archbishop Moore, this rhyme appeared:—

“What say you? the Archbishop’s dead?
A loss indeed! Oh, on his head
May Heaven its blessings pour;
But if with such a heart and mind,
In Manners we his equal find,
Why should we wish for Moore?”

I might mention other similar attempts at rhymical puns on this name; but let this epitaph from St. Bennet’s Churchyard, Paul’s Wharf, London, suffice:—

“Here lies one More, and no more than he;
One More, and no more! how can that be?
Why, one More, and no more may well lie here alone,
But here lies one More, and that’s more than one!”

To this generic class belongs every name that suggests the familiar objects of the country. Even the trees supply their quota. Who is not aware of Mr. Harper Twelvetrees’ existence, and cannot see that his ancestor having made his abode beside some remarkable group of birch or oak or chestnut trees, has been styled by his neighbours “Peter atte Twelve-trees”? Hence the French “Quatrefages,” and more English “Crabtree,” “Plumtree,” or “Plumptree,” “Rountree” (once written “Rowantree”), “Appletree,” and “Peartree.” All these names still exist, and I find entries to prove they lived at least six hundred years ago. To many of my readers it may seem somewhat strange that a single shrub should be pressed into the service of nomenclature in this manner. But let him imagine himself without a surname, living in the country, in a lane, with no landmark adjacent but a stile, or an oak, or an ash. How could he escape being called by his neighbours John Styles, or Oakes, or Ash? If there were no trees, nor even a stile, how could he avoid being designated as John in the Lane, and finally John Lane? Snooks might be set by “Twelvetrees,” for it is but a corruption of “Sennoks” and that of “Sevenoaks,” a well-known place in Kent.

(d) The next division of local names is specific—viz. the names of towns or villages, such as Preston, Buxton, Oldham, Lancaster, Chester, York, and indeed all that class so multitudinous of which the old distich already quoted says,—

“In ford, in ham, in ley, in ton,
The most of English surnames run.”

Sometimes the “ley” gets corrupted. There can be little doubt, for instance, that Hathaway is but a mispronunciation of Hatherley, and that Ann Hathaway’s progenitor hailed from Gloucestershire. Was ever a more beautiful as well as clever punning rhyme made than that imputed to Shakespear? One verse must suffice:

“Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng,
With Love’s sweet notes to grace your song,
To pierce the heart with thrilling lay?
Listen to mine Ann Hathaway!
She hath a way to sing so clear,
Phoebus might wondering stop to hear:
To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,
And Nature charm, Ann hath a way:
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway,
To breathe delight, Ann hath a way.”

Five Hathaways and three Hathways still commemorate her in the Directory. The termination “field” is corrupted into the form of “full” in several cases; thus Charles Hatfull’s name reads somewhat queerly. Of course he belongs to the Hatfields who figure just above him.

See the tendency to migrate into, and not from London. The name London is rare, as the Directory shows. A man leaving Buxton for the capital, would be Walter-o’-Buxton; quitting the capital for the Peak of Derbyshire, he would be Walter-o’-London. But the tendency being for a young aspirant after fame and wealth to go thither, and not thence, made the surname London of rare occurrence. Perhaps there has been more than one Whittington who has fancied the bells have bid him stay and try his luck again in that big centre of life and industry, whose title is the most familiar place-name in the world. Curious that the mightiest city of the mightiest empire should be so scantily represented in its own Directory. The cause, as I have shown, is simple of explanation. We may here set “New,” “Newman,” and “Strange.” A new comer would easily get the sobriquet of “Matthew the New-man,” or “William the Strange,” or “Henry the New,” in the fresh community to which he had joined himself. The sobriquet has stuck to his children, and still remains.(e) Names of foreign towns, the result of earlier or later immigration, come next: such as “Cullen” from Cologne, a name very familiar to English Roman Catholics; “Lyons” from the city devoted to the silk trade; “Bullen” or “Boleyn” from Boulogne; or “Janeway” or “Jannaway” from Genoa.

Many of these foreign town-names came into England through the fact that the towns they represented were celebrated for some particular production. The “Challens” of our Directory all hail from Chalons, once so famous for its blankets that they were called “chalons” for several centuries. The name still lingers in the woollen trade of Yorkshire as “shaloon cloth.” Chaucer speaks both of “chalons” and “cloth of raines.” This was made at Rennes in Brittany, and has furnished the London Directory with its various Rains, Rain, Raine, and Raines. A writer in the “Book of Days” says the following was written upon a lady bearing the name of Rain:—

“Whilst shiv’ring beaux at weather rail,
Of frost, and snow, and wind, and hail,
And heat, and cold, complain,
My steadier mind is always bent
On one sole object of content,—
I ever wish for Rain!

“Hymen, thy votary’s praise attend,
His anxious hope and suit befriend,
Let him not ask in vain:
His thirsty soul, his parched estate,
His glowing breast commiserate—
In pity give him Rain!”

(f) Names of counties naturally follow the last class: as Derbyshire, or Kent, or Lancashire, or Cumberland, or Kentish, or Devonish, or Cornish, or Cornwall. A new comer would easily get a sobriquet of this sort after stepping across the border line of two contiguous shires.

(g) Names of countries and nationalities may fitly be set last: as Ireland, Scott, Welsh, Walsh, Wallace, English. These, of course, are marks of migration. If an Englishman went into Scotland he would be Peter the English, or Inglis; or vice versÂ, he would be Peter the Scot. Foreign districts are represented by such names as “Britton” from Brittany, “Burgon,” or “Burgoyne,” from Burgundy, “Gaskin” from Gascony, and so on with French, Holland, Fleming, and Aleman or Alman, the old name for Germany. The French form for this latter is “D’Almaine,” or “Lallimand.” Both have found their way to London; thus showing a double immigration, first from Germany to France, and then from France to England. Our Sarasins and, Sarsons (when not metronymics for Sara-son, i.e. Sarah’s son) are interesting relics of crusading times, when the Templar loved to bring back with him a young Saracen boy to act as his page. The name is enrolled as “Sarracen” in many ancient registers. Turk also exists. A “William le Turk” lived in London just four hundred years ago, and four “Turks” may be seen in the Directory to-day. The Rev. Richard Thorpe, incumbent of Christ Church, Camberwell, married Thomas Turk to Jane Russ on October 26th, 1877, during the negotiations for peace at Constantinople. How one wishes that such a hopeful union might be brought about between the nations represented by the names of this pair! It is fair to add, that in this case “Russ” is merely a corruption of “Rous,” or of “Rouse,” red-haired or ruddy-complexioned—a favourite nickname with our forefathers. Our “Rowses” and “Russells” are of similar origin.

One name in the London Directory deserves a paragraph to itself, and also to be classified alone, if one single sobriquet can be said to comprise a class. This remarkable surname is “World.” What a cosmopolitan the ancestor of the bearer of this title must have been! Mr. Bowditch, an American writer on surnames, has recorded an instance in the Western continent, for he says, “Columbus discovered a world, and so have I. Mr. World lives at Orilla.” The sobriquet of course is a corruption, but of what I cannot say.

We might go on like Tennyson’s brook, “for ever,” in this chat over local names,—but enough. We have only left ourselves space to remind the reader what vagrants we all are. Like Dickens’ little street boy (in “Bleak House,” I think it is), there seems ever to be a shadowy policeman at our elbow bidding us to “move on.” The Bible has foretold that this is to be our condition; and our names, at least those of local origin, have impressed on our very foreheads the truth of such a Divine prophecy. ’Tis well it should be so. Earth is not to be our dwelling-place for ever. And though at times we may feel that we should like repose, it is in mercy that God applies the goad, for thus are we reminded that—

“Our rest is in Heaven, our rest is not here.”

The day will assuredly dawn for the Christian when he shall be enabled to take off his travel-worn shoes, when he shall enter into the home to which he has been making his way through so many weary stages, and from which there shall be no going forth, even for ever and for ever. May every reader of this chapter be amongst that multitude of “vagabonds in the earth,” to use a Scripture phrase, who shall then “enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.”