"Then gut three, Your name shall be,"
[Footnote added by scanner, who has not read much of Dickens: Silas Wegg was a ready-witted character in "Our Mutual Friend."]
and conferred a suitable estate on his benefactress.
After all, truth is stranger than fiction. There is quite enough legitimate cause for wonderment in the fact that Tyas is letter for letter the same name as Douch, or that Strangeways, from a district in Manchester which, lying between the Irwell and the Irk, formerly subject to floods, is etymologically strong-wash. The Joannes Acutus whose tomb stands in Florence is the great free-lance captain Sir John Hawkwood, "omitting the h in Latin as frivolous, and the k and w as unusual" (Verstegan, Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, ch. ix), which makes him almost as unrecognizable as that Peter Gower, the supposed founder of freemasonry, who turned out to be Pythagoras.
ALTERNATIVE ORIGINS
Many names are susceptible of two, three, or more explanations. This is especially true of some of our commonest monosyllabic surnames. Bell may be from Anglo-Fr. le bel (beau), or from a shop sign, or from residence near the church or town bell. It may even have been applied to the man who pulled the bell. Finally, the ancestor may have been a lady called Isabel, a supposition which does not necessarily imply illegitimacy (Chapter X). Ball is sometimes the shortened form of the once favourite Baldwin. It is also from a shop sign, and perhaps most frequently of all is for bald. The latter word is properly balled, i.e., marked with a ball, or white streak, a word of Celtic origin; cf. "piebald," i.e., balled like a (mag)pie, and the "bald-faced stag." [Footnote: Halliwell notes that the nickname Ball is the name of a horse in Chaucer and in Tusser, of a sheep in the Promptorium Parvulorum, and of a dog in the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII. In each case the name alludes to a white mark, or what horsy people call a star. A cow thus marked is called in Scotland a boasand cow, and from the same word comes the obsolete bawson, badger.] From the same word we get the augmentative Ballard, used, according to Wyclif, by the little boys who unwisely called to an irritable prophet—
"Stey up ballard" (2 Kings ii. 23).
The name may also be personal, Anglo-Sax. Beal-heard. Rowe may be local, from residence in a row (cf. Fr. Delarue), or it may be an accidental spelling of the nickname Roe, which also survives in the Mid. English form Ray (Beasts, Chapter XXIII).
But Row was also the shortened form of Rowland, or Roland. Cobb is an Anglo-Saxon name, as in the local Cobham, but it is also from the first syllable of Cobbold (for either Cuthbeald or Godbeald) and the second of Jacob. From Jacob come the diminutives Cobbin and Coppin.
Or, to take some less common names, House not only represents the medieval de la house, but also stands for Howes, which, in its turn, may be the plural of how, a hill (Chapter XII), or the genitive of How, one of the numerous medieval forms of Hugh (Chapter VI). Hind may be for Hine, a farm servant (Chapter III), or for Mid. Eng. hende, courteous (cf. for the vowel change Ind, Chapter XIII), and is perhaps sometimes also an animal nickname (Beasts, Chapter XXIII). Rouse is generally Fr. roux, i.e. the red, but it may also be the nominative form of Rou, i.e. of Rolf, or Rollo, the sea-king who conquered Normandy. [Footnote: Old French had a declension in two cases. The nominative, which has now almost disappeared, was usually distinguished by -s. This survives in a few words, e.g. fils, and proper names such as Charles, Jules, etc] Was Holman the holy man, the man who lived near a holm, i.e. holly (Chapter XII), on a holm, or river island (Chapter XII), or in a hole, or hollow? All these origins have equal claims.
As a rule, when an apparent nickname is also susceptible of another solution, baptismal, local, or occupative, the alternative explanation is to be preferred, as the popular tendency has always been towards twisting names into significant words. Thus, to take an example of each class, Diamond is sometimes for an old name Daymond (Daegmund), Portwine is a corruption of Poitevin, the man from Poitou (Chapter XI), and Tipler, which now suggests alcoholic excess, was, as late as the seventeenth century, the regular name for an alehouse keeper.
In a very large number of cases there is a considerable choice for the modern bearer of a name. Any Boon or Bone who wishes to assert that
Of Hereford's high blood he came,
A race renown'd for knightly fame
(Lord of the Isles, vi. 15),
can claim descent from de Bohun. While, if he holds that kind hearts are more than coronets, he has an alternative descent from some medieval le bon. This adjective, used as a personal name, gave also Bunn and Bunce; for the spelling of the latter name cf. Dance for Dans, and Pearce for Piers, the nominative of Pierre (Alternative Origins, Chapter I), which also survives in Pears and Pearson. Swain may go back to the father of Canute, or to some hoary-headed swain who, possibly, tended the swine. Not all the Seymours are St. Maurs. Some of them were once Seamers, i.e. tailors. Gosling is rather trivial, but it represents the romantic Jocelyn, in Normandy Gosselin, a diminutive of the once very popular personal name Josse. Goss is usually for goose, but any Goss, or Gossett, unwilling to trace his family back to John Goose, "my lord of Yorkes fole," [Footnote: Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York (1502).] may likewise choose the French Josse or Gosse. Goss may also be a dialect pronunciation of gorse, the older form of which has given the name Gorst. Coward, though humble, cow-herd, is no more timid than Craven, the name of a district in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
NAMES DESIRABLE OR UNDESIRABLE
Mr. Chucks, when in good society, "seldom bowed, Sir, to anything under three syllables" (Peter Simple, ch. xvii.). But the length of a name is not necessarily an index of a noble meaning. As will be seen (pp. 74, 5), a great number of our monosyllabic names belong to, the oldest stratum of all. The boatswain's own name, from Norman-Fr. chouque, a tree-stump, is identical with the rather aristocratic Zouch or Such, from the usual French form souche. Stubbs, which has the same meaning, may be compared with Curson, Curzon, Fr. courson, a stump, a derivative of court, short. [Footnote: Curson is also a dialect variant of Christian.] Pomeroy has a lordly ring, but is the Old French for Applegarth or Appleyard (Tree Names, Chapter XIV), and Camoys means flat-nosed, Fr. Camus—
"This wenche thikke and wel y-growen was,
With kamuse nose, and eyen greye as glas."
(A, 3973.)
Kingsley, speaking of the name assumed by John Briggs, says—
"Vavasour was a very pretty name, and one of those which is [sic] supposed by novelists and young ladies to be aristocratic; why so is a puzzle; as its plain meaning is a tenant farmer and nothing more or less" (Two Years Ago, ch. xi.).
The word is said to represent a Vulgar Lat. vassus vassorum, vassal of vassals.
On the other hand, many a homely name has a complimentary meaning. Mr. Wegg did not like the name Boffin, but its oldest form is bon-fin, good and fine. In 1273 Mr. Bumble's name was spelt bon-bel, good and beautiful. With these we may group Bunker, of which the oldest form is bon-quer (bon coeur), and Boffey, which corresponds