Variant Spellings
Medieval spelling was roughly phonetic, i.e. it attempted to reproduce the sound of the period and region, and even men of learning, as late as the eighteenth century, were very uncertain in matters of orthography. The spelling of the language is now practically normalized, although in conformity with no sort of principle; but the family name, as a private possession, has kept its freedom. Thus, if we wish to speak poetically of a meadow, I suppose we should call it a lea, but the same word is represented by the family names Lea, Lee, Ley, Leigh, Legh, Legge, Lay, Lye, perhaps the largest group of local surnames we possess.
In matters of spelling we observe various tendencies. One is the retention of an archaic form, which does not necessarily affect pronunciation. Late Mid. English was fond of y for i, of double consonants, and of final -e. All these appear in the names Thynne (thin) and Wyllie (wily). Therefore we should not deride the man who writes himself Smythe. But in some cases the pronunciation suffers, e.g. the name Fry represents Mid. Eng. fri, one of the forms of the adjective that is now written free. Burt represents Anglo-Sax. beorht, the normal result of which is Bright. We now write subtle and perfect, artificial words, in the second of which the pronunciation has been changed in accordance with the restored spelling; but the older forms survive in the names Suttle and Parfitt—
“He was a verray parfit, gentil knyght.”
(A, 72.)
The usual English pronunciation of names like Mackenzie, Menzies, Dalziel, is due to the substitution by the printer of a z for an obsolete letter that represented a soft palatal sound more like y. 1
We have an archaic plural ending in Knollys (Knowles), the plural of knoll, and in Sandys, and an archaic spelling in Sclater for Slater or Slatter, for both slat and slate come from Old Fr. esclat (éclat), a splinter. With Knollys and Sandys we may put Pepys, for the existence of the dims. Pipkin, Peppitt, and Peppiatt points to the medieval name Pipun, corresponding to the royal Pepin. Streatfeild preserves variant spellings of street and field. In Gardiner we have the Old Northern French word which now, as a common noun, gardener, is assimilated to garden, the normal French form of which appears in Jardine.
Such orthographic variants as i and y, Simons, Symons, Ph and f, Jephcott, Jeffcott, s and c, Pearce, Pearce, Rees, Reece, Sellars (cellars), ks and x, Dickson, Dixon, are a matter of taste or accident. Initial letters which became mute often disappeared in spelling, e.g. Wray, a corner (Chapter XIII), has become hopelessly confused with Ray, a roe, Knott, from Cnut, i.e. Canute, or from dialect knot, a hillock, with Noll, crop-haired. Knowlson is the son of Nowell (Chapter IX) or of Noll, i.e. Oliver.
Therefore, when Mr. X. asserts that his name has always been spelt in such and such a way, he is talking nonsense. If his great-grandfather’s will is accessible, he will probably find two or three variants in that alone. The great Duke of Wellington, as a younger man, signed himself Arthur Wesley—
“He was colonel of Dad’s regiment, the Thirty-third foot, after Dad left the army, and then he changed his name from Wesley to Wellesley, or else the other way about”
(KIPLING, Marklake Witches); and I know two families the members of which disagree as to the orthography of their names. We have a curious affectation in such spellings as ffrench, ffoulkes, etc., where the ff is merely the method of indicating the capital letter in early documents.
The telescoping of long names is a familiar phenomenon. Well-known examples are Cholmondeley, Chumley, Marjoribanks, Marchbanks, Mainwaring, Mannering. Less familiar are Auchinleck, Affleck, Boutevilain, Butlin, Postlethwaite, Posnett, Sudeley, Sully, Wolstenholme, Woosnam. Ensor is from the local Edensor, Cavendish was regularly Candish for the Elizabethans, while Cavenham in Suffolk has given the surname Canham. Daventry has become Daintree, Dentry, and probably the imitative Dainty, while Stepson is for Stevenson. It is this tendency which makes the connection between surnames and village names so difficult to establish in many cases, for the artificial name as it occurs in the gazetteer often gives little clue to the local pronunciation. It is easy to recognize Bickenhall or Bickenhill in Bicknell and Puttenham in Putnam, but the identity of Wyndham with Wymondham is only clear when we know the local Pronunciation of the latter name. Milton and Melton are often telescoped forms of Middleton.
Notes
1 This substitution has led one writer on surnames, who apparently confuses bells with beans, to derive the rare surname Billiter, whence Billiter’s Lane in the City, from “Belzetter, i.e., the Bell-setter.” The Mid. Eng. “bellezeter, campanarius” (Prompt. Parv.), was a bell-founder, from a verb related to geysir, ingot, and Ger. giessen, to pour. Robert le bellegeter was a freeman of York in 1279.