Social Grades
By dealing with a few essential points at the outset we shall clear the ground for considering the various groups of surnames connected with trade, craft, profession or office. To begin with, it is certain that such names as Pope, Cayzer, King, Earl, Bishop are nicknames, very often conferred on performers in religious plays or acquired in connection with popular festivals and processions—
“Names also have been taken of civil honours, dignities and estate, as King, Duke, Prince, Lord, Baron, Knight, Valvasor or Vavasor, Squire, Castellon, partly for that their ancestours were such, served such, acted such parts; or were Kings of the Bean, Christmas-Lords, etc.” (Camden).
We find corresponding names in other languages, and some of the French names, usually preceded by the definite article, have passed into English, e.g. Lempriere, a Huguenot name, and Levêque, whence our Levick, Vick, Veck (Chapter III). Baron generally appears as Barron, and Duke, used in Mid. English of any leader, is often degraded to Duck, whence the dim. Duckett. But all three of these names can also be referred to Marmaduke.
It would be tempting to put Palsgrave in this class. Prince Rupert, the Pfalzgraf, i.e. Count Palatine, was known as the Palsgrave in his day, but I have not found the title recorded early enough.
With Lord we must put the northern Laird, and, in my opinion, Senior; for, if we notice how much commoner Young is than Old, and Fr. Lejeune than Levieux, we must conclude that junior, a very rare surname, ought to be of much more frequent occurrence than Senior, Synyer, a fairly common name. There can be little doubt that Senior is usually a latinization of the medieval le seigneur, whence also Saynor. Knight is not always knightly, for Anglo-Sax. cniht means servant; cf. Ger. Knecht. The word got on in the world, with the consequence that the name is very popular, while its medieval compeers, knave, varlet, villain, have, even when adorned with the adj. good, dropped out of the surname list, Bonvalet, Bonvarlet, Bonvillain are still common surnames in France. From Knight we have the compound Road-night, a mounted servitor. Thus Knight is more often a true occupative name, and the same applies to Dring or Dreng, a Scandinavian name of similar meaning.
Other names from the middle rungs of the social ladder are also to be taken literally, e.g. Franklin, a freeholder, Anglo-Fr. frankelein—
“How called you your franklin, Prior Aylmer?”
“Cedric,” answered the Prior, “Cedric the Saxon”
(Ivanhoe, ch. i.)—
Burgess, Freeman, Freeborn. The latter is sometimes for Freebairn and exists already as the Anglo-Saxon personal name Freobeorn. Denison (Chapter II) is occasionally an accommodated form of denizen, Anglo-Fr. deinzein, a burgess enjoying the privileges belonging to those who lived “deinz (in) la cité.” In 1483 a certain Edward Jhonson—
“Sued to be mayde Denison for fer of ye payment of ye subsedy.”
(Letter to Sir William Stonor, June 9, 1483.)
Bond is from Anglo-Sax, bonda, which means simply agriculturist. The word is of Icelandic origin and related to Boor, another word which has deteriorated and is rare as a surname, though the cognate Bauer is common enough in Germany. Holder is translated by Tennant. For some other names applied to the humbler peasantry see Chapter XIII.
To return to the social summit, we have Kingson, often confused with the local Kingston, and its Anglo-French equivalent Fauntleroy. Faunt, aphetic for Anglo-Fr. enfaunt, is common in Mid. English. When the mother of Moses had made the ark of bulrushes, or, as Wyclif calls it, the “junket of resshen,” she—
“Putte the litil faunt with ynne”
(Exodus ii. 3)
The Old French accusative (Chapter I) was also used as a genitive, as in Bourg-le-roi, Bourg-la-rein, corresponding to our Kingsbury and Queensborough. We have a genitive also in Flowerdew, found in French as Flourdieu. Lower, in his Patronymics Britannica (1860), the first attempt at a dictionary of English surnames, conjectures Fauntleroy to be from an ancient French war-cry Défendez le roi! for “in course of time, the meaning of the name being forgotten, the de would be dropped, and the remaining syllables would easily glide into Fauntleroy.” 1
Notes
1 I have quoted this “etymology” because it is too funny to be lost; but a good deal of useful information can be found in Lower, especially with regard to the habitat of well-known names.