| Notes |
- The earliest use of family names in England was about the beginning of the eleventh century. Long before that time, indeed, clan names were common, and such were always patronymics, e. g., Fotherings, the descendants of Fother; Beormings, the descendants of Beovm; Icklings. the descendants of Ickel. At the time of the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Britain (fifth and sixth centuries) it was customary for a clan to settle in a stockaded village by itself, and all English towns whose names end in ham or ton, preceded by ing, were originally the abodes of single clans; e. g., Birmingham, home of the children of Beorm ; Icklington, town of the children of Ickel. Besides these general clan names no others were in use except individual names, such as Alfred or Edith.
The use of family names, beginning in the eleventh century, increased slowly. It was not until the fifteenth century that such names became nearly universal, and also stationary. At first they were shifting in usage. Thus, the same man might be called Henry Wilson, because his father was named William, or Henry Frothingham, because he lived at the village of Fotheringham, or Henry Draper, because of his occupation. If the s/o this Henry were named Robert, and were any kind of a worker in metals, from an armorer to a blacksmith, he might be known as Robert Harrison or Robert Smith. Surnames had not ceased to fluctuate in this way until the fifteenth century, and it was not until late in the sixteenth that more importance began to be attached to the family surname than to the individual baptismal name. It appears, therefore, that in tracing back the Foster genealogy into the ninth century, we are approaching the time at which difficulty must arise from fluctuations of surname. In the thirteenth century we should be quite likely to encounter such confusion and to find the helpfulness of surnames in tracing genealogies vastly diminished.
Surnames derived from estates or localities seem to have been the first to become stationary, and next after them the surnames derived from trade or ofiice, since sons have so commonly followed their fathers in business.
We are at first struck with the fact that barbarians commonly use such names, both for individuals and for clans. Such individual names as Grey Wolf or Yellow Raccoon often owe their origin to some personal peculiarity or to some irrecoverable incident. Among American Indians, and in general among barbarians all over the world, the clans are apt to have such names as Wolf, Eagle, Salmon, Turtle, etc. ; the totem, or symbol of the Wolf clan, the idol or image of its tutelar deity, is likely to be a rude image of a wolf or wolf's head; and in many cases the clan is supposed to have had a wolf for its first ancestor.
Shall we say, then, that animal surnames in modern English are sur\nvals of ancient heathen clan-names? To this view there seems to be a serious objection. The conversion of our Ecglish forefathers from heathenism to Christianity was completed in the seventh centurv, at least four hundred j-ears before the earliest use of surnames in England. The old clan system, moreover, had crumbled to pieces long before the Norman Conquest. It is not likely, therefore, that habits of naming characteristics of the old heathen clans could have persisted long enough to give rise to a whole class of surnames so late as the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Between the ancient systems of totem devices and the heraldry of the Middle Ages there were many analogies and doubtless some points of connection, though, on the whole, the former must be regarded as the predecessor of the latter, not as its ancestor. The medieval heraldry was growing up in England during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it made an extensive use of conventionalized heads of familiar animals, not merely lions, wolves, and bulls, but many kinds of bird and fish, as well as such imaginary creatures as dragons, griffins, and cockatrices. For example, Lucy is the heraldic name for pike, and the shield of the De Lucy family bears on a field gules three lucies or. From this emblem the family surname is likely to have arisen, just as Geoffrey Plantagenet was so called from the sprig of broom or genesta plant worn in his helmet. The familiar name of Pike, as well as that of the Puritan magistrate. Sir Thomas Lucy, who arrested Shakespeare for poaching, has probably come from the heraldic use of pikes or lucies.
The explanation which serves for one of this class of animal surnames might perhaps serve for all ; but there is another point to be considered. Heraldic devices were used not only upon banners and coat-of-arms, but also upon signboards, not merely of inns but of other places of business. In days when reading and writing were not common accomplishments, such devices were in general use, and they survived down to a recent time. For tavern signs they are not yet extinct. In old times, as often at the present day in Europe, the shop and the homestead were usually contained in the same building. Thus in the seventeenth century the father of John Milton, who was a solicitor, notary public, and law-stationer, had his office and his home in a certain house known as the Spread Eagle, in Bread Street, Cheapside. Over the front door was the figure of an eagle with outstretched wings. For four or five centuries before Milton's time, in going through any town, you would have passed by a succession of such signs of hawks, cranes, dolphins, salmon, lambs, and bulls, thus finding your way to the particular shop and homestead'of which you were in quest. The principle upon which the signs were chosen is not always obvious. Sometimes a family name may have suggested the sign, as if a man named Crow were to paint a black crow over his door; but in early times the sign undoubtedly preceded and suggested the name. The family which dwelt at the sign of the crow came to be called Crow, in the same way that a family which dwelt at a country house called Greenough or Greenhalge (green field) came to be called by the name of the house.«s106»
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Old Dead Relatives
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