What’s in a surname?

• kateshrewsday

There’s a modern-day nonsense tale which I repeat again and again because it’s just howlingly funny.

It is by childrens’ author Andy Stanton, the author of the Mr Gumm books and the peerless Lamonic Chronicles, a man who has always seen the uncontrollably funny side of words.

One of his greatest shuffle-on parts – in fact, someone who is only a distant legend by the time we meet him – is the long-lost sailor, Nathaniel Surname, hero of the High Seas.

“One Tuesday long ago,” the story goes,” he had saved a Spanish Village from being destroyed from a terrible pirate called Kevin.

“As a prize, the village presented Nathaniel with the chest, which was absolutely stuffed full of chocolate. Not just any old chocolate, mind you, but special chocolate made by the dolphins of the region.

“And it might just be legend, but some said it was MAGIC CHOCOLATE WITH FANTASTIC POWERS,” (this in tiny print) “and they always whispered when they said it, which is why it is written so small.”

Nathaniel Surname: the seafarer who calls our bluff. His name is as generic as they come, yet do you know anyone with a surname called Surname?

If you do, you are quite rare, if British Surname and Surname Profiles  is to be believed. There are other more official sites which do the same job, drawing from records in the public domain, but this has style. It’s all free, but there’s the option to buy the proprietor a drink.

A search for a surname ‘Surname’ reveals the following message:

“Sorry, we don’t currently have any data for SURNAME.

“If this is your name: Congratulations, you are a genuine rarity, at least in the UK. Maybe you should try to breed, to avoid the SURNAME family becoming extinct!”

I wonder what the hero of the High Seas would think about that.

The surname is an endless source of cross-pint debate. Everyone’s got their favourites: mine’s Cumberbatch, my father-in-law’s used to be Clutterbuck, my mother loved the name of a Reading law firm: Van Der Pump and Wellbelove. My husband Phil opts for Wolf, Christian name Wolfgang, the manager of German Bundesliga team Vfl Wolfsburg in the early noughties. Wolfgang Wolf of Wolfsburg.

But surnames have not always been de rigeur.

Chinese surnames have been a part of life for more than two thousand years. They were the prerogative of royalty at first, and later the masses.

And it happened that way here, too: William The Conqueror provided England with an inexhaustible supply of Gallic nobles who liked to take the name oftheir place of origin as a way of identifying their purebred bloodline.

But no-one else seemed to use them much, back when the Domesday Book was being collated.

Slowly but surely, though, the surnames crept in. Sometimes because of the job someone did: Smith, Wright, Tailor or my personal favourite, Cheeseman; sometimes tied to the place someone was from, like those percussive Cornish names which start with Tre- or Pol- or Pen-.

Occasionally your name came from whose son you were – like Fitzwilliam, the Fitz- prefix meaning son; and like very old stories there are some whose meaning seems lost in the mists of time.

There are people devoted to studying the change of surnames over time. The English Surnames Survey, carried out by the Department of English Local History at Leicester University, found that there was a decline in the number of different surnames in the late middle ages – followed by a population boom in the 16th and early 17th centuries.

Which is where Hearth Tax came in. Between 1662 and 1688, a jolly lucrative tax was levied from all but the poorest English people. It was calculated on the number of hearths you had in your house.

Thus a manor house would have many, while a tiny cottage might have just one.

The people hated it, it seems*, and eventually revolted. King James II was given his cards. But for a bit more than two decades, surnames were recorded year on year.

And that means that surname historians have a half way point: they collect names from the middle ages and the present day, stopping for lunch at the seventeenth century.

Until that half way mark there was, against all odds, a group called “The Surnames”.

Until the union of Scotland and England under James I there were tight-knit groups living in Northumberland and Cumberland. They were generally related: and they were a bit like Scottish clans. And they were called the Surnames.

I wonder if there was ever a Nathaniel among them.

So there were Surnames once, and there have been surnames since the Normans conquered. It only remains to enquire of the English Surnames Survey: are names still changing?

But that’s another story for another day.

* according to the Oxford Companion to Local and Family History Ed. David Hey, OUP, 1996

Image source here

29 thoughts on “What’s in a surname?”

  1. I think the L on your keyboard’s gone AWO…L, Kate – the proprietor would have to buy me a drink if I were required to be “drawing from pubic records an the pubic domain” 😉

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  2. Dearest, dearest Kate: I had the privilege of reading your first draft of this post. Thank you for the best chuckle I’ve had in ages. One ell of a post 😉

    Our surname is quite rare. The disadvantage is that people struggle to pronounce it or read it, which leads to some hilarious mail.

    I think the influx of foreign surnames we are experiencing will eventually be anglicized, like foreign names have always been, and that will be interesting.

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  3. Fascinating – I did a quick search in the White Pages and discovered two “Surnames” here Down Under. Maybe the old sailor ended up here and has at least two descendants! Our own name goes back to the conquest and means “dweller by the field where rye used to grow.’ Not sure if our ancestors were vagrants or making some claim to nobility by acquiring a surname.

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  7. Hahaha, glad your ‘l’ is alive and well! Then there are surnames that for instance are spelt with an ‘e’ – English ancestors and an ‘a’ – Scottish ancestors!

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  8. I love to study surnames and to hear the history of how a name comes about. When young and with nothing else to do, we would pull out a Chicago phone book, always a tome, and have fun with names. We would start with Poulos, because there were pages and pages of them; results of shortening long Greek names, and I am always interested in hearing of how names were changed, either by their owners, or the authorities at Ellis Island who couldn’t pronounce them. We have an Irish surname; an O joined by a hyphen. Computers in stores and such places often don’t have the capacity for the hyphen. We laugh and say Tom’s forefather’s name is in the slow process of being changed much like the swell of immigrants at the turn of the 20th century.

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  9. Pity I missed the fun too, Kate! Still, I love your turn of phrase, like “stopping for lunch at the seventeenth century” 🙂 One day I’ll follow my maiden surname to Scotland and do some exploring there…

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  10. Hi Kate, I’ve been stopping off at the seventeenth century for some time now, but for other things. You may have provided me something further to investigate with this names thing.
    I don’t know of any Surnames – the surname Surname I mean – but I knew a Wellbelove once.
    Thanks, I’ll follow your link later! 🙂

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    1. Tom, I look forward to hearing whether you get anywhere with surnames. And you knew a Wellbelove too! Excellent!
      I wonder why the seventeenth century is such a draw, Tom? It sounds like you’re no tourist there, but know it well….

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  11. Most immediately, grandparents on both sides ~ Rogie, Logie, Hatch, and . . . Hatch. The last were not even close cousins ~ but maybe way back when . . . some shared ancestry.

    As per your norm . . . a riveting read.

    Especially enjoyed: Everyone’s got their favourites: mine’s Cumberbatch, my father-in-law’s used to be Clutterbuck, my mother loved the name of a Reading law firm: Van Der Pump and Wellbelove.

    I’m partial to Weiner ~ always good for a chuckle. 😀

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    1. My favorite: Ashley actualy met the gentleman (not professionally, of course!) – was an Obstetrician/Gynecologist named Dr. Warmfleisch! Cracks me up every time I think about it. Of course there is my hand surgeon, “Dr. Cutting.” First name is Paul – I said he ought to be called “Dr. Paula Cutting,” as that’s how he seems to be spending most of his time. . .

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  12. My family’s surname – Tohline – has a rather odd history, but suffice it to say, there are only about 25 in the world with that name! (There are several people who would say, “Thank God!”). The pronunciation is a mystery to almost everybody, but it is “t’LEEN” – sort of like t’lean against the wall! Our family gatherings (they rarely occur) are called the “Tohline against the wall-a-palooza!”

    In addition, I have frequently thought that I wanted to change my name to either “Anonymous,” or Author Unknown.” I figure I could collect a lot of royalties that way! That’s my one and only “get rich quick scheme. . .”

    Great post, once again! What would I do without you? How did I get along for almost 60 years without your writing to read? It’s a mystery. . .

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  13. I think the Surname came from the name of your sire?

    Norwegian women used to take their second / family / surname from their mother – ending -dottir

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