Month Names
We find the same difficulty with the names of the months. Several of these are represented in French, but our March has four other origins, from March in Cambridgeshire, from march, a boundary, from marsh, or from Mark; while May means in Mid. English a maiden (Chapter XXI), and is also a dim. of Matthew (Chapter IX). The names of the seasons also present difficulty. Spring usually corresponds to Fr. La Fontaine (Chapter II), but we find also Lent, the old name for the season, and French has Printemps. 1 Summer and Winter 2 are found very early as nicknames, as are also Frost and Snow; but why always Summers or Somers with s and Winter without? 3 The latter has no doubt in many cases absorbed Vinter, vintner (Chapter III) but this will not account for the complete absence of genitive forms. And what has become of the other season? We should not expect to find the learned word “autumn,” but neither Fall nor Harvest, the true English equivalents, are at all common as surnames.
I regard this group, viz. days, months, seasons, as one of the least clearly accounted for in our nomenclature, and cannot help thinking that the more copious examples which we find in French and German are largely distorted forms due to the imitative instinct, or are susceptible of other explanations. This is certainly true in some cases, e.g. Fr. Mars is the regular French development of Medardus, a saint to whom a well-known Parisian church is dedicated; and the relationship of Janvier to Janus may be via the Late Lat. januarius, for janitor, a doorkeeper.
Notes
1 The cognate Ger. Lenz is fairly common, hence the frequency of Lent in America.
2 Winter was one of Hereward’s most faithful comrades.
3 Two other common nicknames were Flint and Steel.
4 Medardus was the saint who, according to Ingoldsby, lived largely on oysters obtained by the Red Sea shore. At his church in Paris were performed the ‘miracles’ of the Quietists in the seventeenth century. When the scenes that took place became a scandal, the government intervened, with the result that a wag adorned the church door with the following:
De par le Roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracle en ce lieu.”