What's in a Name

In that period of the Middle Ages just before the convention of 'surnames' was adopted - about the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century - it must have been very difficult in any group or community to distinguish in conversation between the three or four Johns or Marys, Elizabeths or Noahs, who might be among your neighbours or your business associates.

In a royal court, of course, many of those attending might have titles, so that George, Earl of Derby and George , Baron Rutland could be referred to as "Lord Derby" and "Baron Rutland" - or even just plain "Derby" and "Rutland".

In a small village, though, there might have been five or six Lukes, Marys, Noahs or Davids. You could identify them by their trades, perhaps: Luke the fisher, perhaps, or Mary the baker. Or if there were two Lukes in the fishing business, they might be known as black Luke (with the dark hair) and short Luke (the little one). One of the Marys might be John's daughter; one of the Noahs might be Hosea's son. Or the local priest or cobbler may have come from nearby Crawley or even far-away Lichfield. So by the fourteenth century you could be speaking of Luke Fisher, Luke Short, Mary Baker, Mary Johns, Noah Hoseason, Father Crawley or Robert Lichfield.

Its curious, but obvious when you think of it, that a 'toponym' (that is, a surname derived from a place-name) is only helpful to describe a person who has moved away from home. You couldn't usefully give everyone in the village of Crawley the surname Crawley: as far as distinguishing one Luke, or one Mary, from another goes, it would only increase the confusion. So although people listed in today's telephone directory under the surname "Scarborough" can be assumed to be descended from one or another ancestor from that place, he (that ancestor) must surely have left home and settled elsewhere, where the residents named their new neighbour by his place of origin.

Nicknames could also give rise to surnames. A late medieval abbot of Ramsey named 'Whitman' is assumed to have got that soubriquet from having white hair - perhaps even being an albino. Now abbots in those days were meant to be celibate, so we have to assume that the Whitmans to be found in today's telephone directories are not actually his descendants: perhaps there were other non-clerical albinos in those days whose children and descendants have kept the name alive.

One of my ancestors, only a couple of generations back, was born a Fatt. I suppose a remote ancestor of his needed, shall we say, a big belt - and Fatt became the surname of generations of my forbears, until a couple of brothers of that name (one of them my grandfather) decided to drop their paternal surname and adopt the maiden surname of their grandmother. I have no objection.

What's in a Name