Counties and Towns
As a rule it will be found that, while most of our counties have given family names, sometimes corrupted, e.g. Lankshear, Willsher, Cant, Chant, for Kent, with which we may compare Anguish for Angus, the larger towns are rather poorly represented, the movement having always been from country to town, and the smaller spot serving for more exact description. An exception is Bristow (Bristol), Mid. Eng. brig-stow, the place on the bridge, the great commercial city of the west from which so many medieval seamen hailed; but the name is sometimes from Burstow (Surrey), and there were possibly smaller places called by so natural a name, just as the name Bradford, i.e. broad ford, may come from a great many other places than the Yorkshire wool town. Rossiter is generally for Rochester, but also for Wroxeter (Salop); Coggeshall is well disguised as Coxall, Barnstaple as Bastable, Maidstone as Mayston, Stockport as Stopford. On the other hand, there is not a village of any antiquity but has, or once had, a representative among surnames.