Sample Article
Article - What's In a Name? Your Link to the Past
Before surnames 'What is in a name? Very much if the wit of man
could find it out.' Whoever penned this well known saying undoubtedly
had it right - in England alone there are around 45,000 different
surnames - each with a history behind it.
The sources from which names are derived are almost endless: nicknames,
physical attributes, counties, trades, heraldic charges, and almost
every object known to mankind. Tracing a family tree in practice
involves looking at lists of these names - this is how we recognise
our ancestors when we find them.
Before the Norman Conquest of Britain, people did not have hereditary
surnames: they were known just by a personal name or nickname.
'Many individuals and families have changed their names or adopted
an alias at some time in the past'
When communities were small each person was identifiable by a single
name, but as the population increased, it gradually became necessary
to identify people further - leading to names such as John the butcher,
William the short, Henry from Sutton, Mary of the wood, Roger son
of Richard. Over time many names became corrupted and their original
meaning is now not easily seen.
After 1066, the Norman barons introduced surnames into England,
and the practice gradually spread. Initially, the identifying names
were changed or dropped at will, but eventually they began to stick
and to get passed on. So trades, nicknames, places of origin, and
fathers' names became fixed surnames - names such as Fletcher and
Smith, Redhead and Swift, Green and Pickering, Wilkins and Johnson.
By 1400 most English families, and those from Lowland Scotland,
had adopted the use of hereditary surnames.
Most Saxon and early Celtic personal names - names such Oslaf,
Oslac, Oswald, Oswin and Osway ('Os' meaning God) - disappeared
quite quickly after the Norman invasion. It was not fashionable,
and possibly not sensible either, to bear them during those times,
so they fell out of use and were not often passed on as surnames.
However, some names from before the Norman Conquest survived long
enough to be inherited directly as surnames, including the Anglo-Saxon
Cobbald (famous-bold).