Curiosities of Puritan Nomenclature

DEDICATED TO

HIS FELLOW MEMBERS

OF THE

HARLEIAN SOCIETY

PREFACE

I will not be so ill-natured as to quote the names of all the writers who have denied the existence of Puritan eccentricities at the font. One, at least, ought to have known better, for he has edited more books of the Puritan epoch than any other man in England. The mistake of all is that, misled perhaps by Walter Scott and Macaulay, they have looked solely to the Commonwealth period. The custom was then in its decay.

I have to thank several clergymen for giving me extracts from the registers and records under their care. A stranger to them, I felt some diffidence in making my requests. In every case the assistance I asked for was readily extended. These gentlemen are the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, St. Matthew, Friday Street, London; the Rev. W. Wodehouse, Elham, Canterbury; the Rev. J. B. Waytes, Markington, Yorks.; the Rev. William Tebbs, Caterham Valley; the Rev. Canon Howell, Drayton, Norwich; the Rev. J. O. Lord, Northiam, Staplehurst; and the Rev. G. E. Haviland, Warbleton, Sussex. The last-named gentleman copied no less than 120 names, all of Puritan origin, from the Warbleton records. I beg to thank him most warmly, and to congratulate him on possessing the most remarkable register of its kind in England. Certain circumstances led me to suspect that Warbleton was a kind of head-quarters of these eccentricities; I wrote to the rector, and we soon found that we had “struck ile.” That Mr. Heley, the Puritan incumbent, should have baptized his own children by such names as Fear-not and Much-mercy, was not strange, but that he should have persuaded the majority of his parishioners to follow his example proves wonderful personal influence.

Amongst the laity, I owe gratitude to Mr. Chaloner Smith, Richmond, Surrey; Mr. R. R. Lloyd, St. Albans; Mr. J. E. Bailey, F.S.A., Manchester; Mr. J. L. Beardsley, Cleveland, U.S.A.; Mr. Tarbutts, Cranbrook, Kent; and Mr. Speed, Ulverston.

Of publications, I must needs mention Notes and Queries, a treasure-house to all antiquaries; the Sussex Archæological Society’s works, and the Yorkshire Archæological and Topographical Journal. The “Wappentagium de Strafford” of the latter is the best document yet published for students of nomenclature. Out of it alone a complete history of English surnames and baptismal names might be written. Though inscribed with clerkly formality, it contained more pet forms than any other record I have yet seen; and this alone must stamp it as a most important document. The Harleian Society, by publishing church registers, have set a good example, and I have made much use of those that have been issued. They contain few instances of Puritan extravagance, but that is owing to the fact that no leading Puritan was minister of any of the three churches whose records they have so far printed. I sincerely hope the list of subscribers to this society may become enlarged.

For the rest – the result of twelve years’ research – I am alone responsible. Heavy clerical responsibilities have often been lightened by a holiday spent among the yellow parchments of churches in town and country, from north to south of England. As it is possible I have seen as many registers as any other man in the country, I will add one statement – a very serious one: there are thousands of entries, at this moment faintly legible, which in another generation will be wholly illegible. What is to be done?

Should this little work meet the eye of any of the clergy in Sussex, Kent, and, I may add, Surrey, I would like to state that if they will search the baptismal records of the churches under their charge, say from 1580 to 1620, and furnish me with the result, I shall be very much obliged.

Vicarage, Ulverston,

March, 1880.

NOTE

W. D. S. in the Prologue = “Wappentagium de Strafford.”

C. S. P. = “Calendar of State Papers.”

PROLOGUE.
THE PET-NAME EPOCH IN ENGLAND

“One grows too fat, another too lean: modest Matilda, pretty pleasing Peg, sweet-singing Susan, mincing merry Moll, dainty dancing Doll, neat Nancy, jolly Joan, nimble Nell, kissing Kate, bouncing Bess with black eyes, fair Phillis with fine white hands, fiddling Frank, tall Tib, slender Sib, will quickly lose their grace, grow fulsome, stale, sad, heavy, dull, sour, and all at last out of fashion.” —Anatomy of Melancholy.

“Be the jacks fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets laid, and everything in order?” —The Taming of the Shrew.

I. The Paucity of Names after the Conquest

There were no Scripture names in England when the Conqueror took possession; even in Normandy they had appeared but a generation or two before William came over. If any are found in the old English period, we may feel assured they were ecclesiastic titles, adopted at ordination. Greek and Latin saints were equally unnoticed.

It is hard to believe the statement I have made. Before many generations had passed, Bartholomew, Simon, Peter, Philip, Thomas, Nicholas, John, and Elias, had engrossed a third of the male population; yet Domesday Book has no Philip, no Thomas, only one Nicholas, and but a sprinkling of Johns. It was not long before Jack and Jill took the place of Godric and Godgivu as representative of the English sexes, yet Jack was from the Bible, and Jill from the saintly Calendar.

Without entering into a deep discussion, we may say that the great mass of the old English names had gone down before the year 1200 had been reached. Those that survived only held on for bare existence. From the moment of William’s advent, the names of the Norman began to prevail. He brought in Bible names, Saint names, and his own Teutonic names. The old English names bowed to them, and disappeared.

A curious result followed. From the year 1150 to 1550, four hundred years in round numbers, there was a very much smaller dictionary of English personal names than there had been for four hundred years before, and than there has been in the four hundred years since. The Norman list was really a small one, and yet it took possession of the whole of England.

A consequence of this was the Pet-name Epoch. In every community of one hundred Englishmen about the year 1300, there would be an average of twenty Johns and fifteen Williams; then would follow Thomas, Bartholomew, Nicholas, Philip, Simon, Peter, and Isaac from the Scriptures, and Richard, Robert, Walter, Henry, Guy, Roger, and Baldwin from the Teutonic list. Of female names, Matilda, Isabella, and Emma were first favourites, and Cecilia, Catharine, Margaret, and Gillian came closely upon their heels. Behind these, again, followed a fairly familiar number of names of either sex, some from the Teuton, some from the Hebrew, some from the Greek and Latin Church, but, when all told, not a large category.

It was, of course, impossible for Englishmen and Englishwomen to maintain their individuality on these terms. Various methods to secure a personality arose. The surname was adopted, and there were John Atte-wood, John the Wheelwright, John the Bigg, and John Richard’s son, in every community. Among the middle and lower classes these did not become hereditary till so late as 1450 or 1500.¹ This was not enough, for in common parlance it was not likely the full name would be used. Besides, there might be two, or even three, Johns in the same family. So late as March, 1545, the will of John Parnell de Gyrton runs:

“Alice, my wife, and Old John, my son, to occupy my farm together, till Olde John marries; Young John, my son, shall have Brenlay’s land, plowed and sowed at Old John’s cost.”

The register of Raby, Leicestershire, has this entry:

“1559. Item: 29th day of August was John, and John Picke, the children of Xtopher and Anne, baptized.

“Item: the 31st of August the same John and John were buried.”

Mr. Burns, who quotes these instances in his “History of Parish Registers,” adds that at this same time “one John Barker had three sons named John Barker, and two daughters named Margaret Barker.”²

If the same family had but one name for the household, we may imagine the difficulty when this one name was also popular throughout the village. The difficulty was naturally solved by, firstly, the adoption of nick forms; secondly, the addition of pet desinences. Thus Emma became by the one practice simple Emm, by the other Emmott; and any number of boys in a small community might be entered in a register as Bartholomew, and yet preserve their individuality in work-a-day life by bearing such names as Bat, Bate, Batty, Bartle, Bartelot, Batcock, Batkin, and Tolly, or Tholy. In a word, these several forms of Bartholomew were treated as so many separate proper names.

No one would think of describing Wat Tyler’s – we should now say Walter Tyler’s – insurrection as Gowen does:

“Watte vocat, cui Thoma venit, neque Symme retardat,
Bat– que Gibbe simul, Hykke venire subent:
Colle furit, quem Bobbe juvat, nocumenta parantes,
Cum quibus, ad damnum Wille coire volat —
Crigge rapit, dum Davie strepit, comes est quibus Hobbe,
Larkin et in medio non minor esse putat:
Hudde ferit, quem Judde terit, dum Tibbe juvatur
Jacke domosque viros vellit, en ense necat.”

These names, taken in order, are Walter, Thomas, Simon, Bartholomew, Gilbert, Isaac, Nicholas, Robert, William, Gregory, David, Robert (2), Lawrence, Hugh, Jordan (or George), Theobald, and John.

Another instance will be evidence enough. The author of “Piers Plowman” says —

“Then goeth Glutton in, and grete other after,
Cesse, the sonteresse, sat on the bench:
Watte, the warner, and his wife bothe:
Tymme, the tynkere, and twayne of his prentices:
Hikke, the hackney man, and Hugh, the pedlere,
Clarice, of Cokkeslane, and the clerke of the churche:
Dawe, the dykere, and a dozen othere.”

Taken in their order, these nick forms represent Cecilia, Walter, Timothy, Isaac, Clarice, and David. It will be seen at a glance that such appellatives are rare, by comparison, in the present day. Tricks of this kind were not to be played with Bible names at the Reformation, and the new names from that time were pronounced, with such exceptions as will be detailed hereafter, in their fulness.

To speak of William and John is to speak of a race and rivalry 800 years old. In Domesday there were 68 Williams, 48 Roberts, 28 Walters, to 10 Johns. Robert Montensis asserts that in 1173, at a court feast of Henry II., Sir William St. John and Sir William Fitz-Hamon bade none but those who bore the name of William to appear. There were present 120 Williams, all knights. In Edward I.’s reign John came forward. In a Wiltshire document containing 588 names, 92 are William, 88 John, 55 Richard, 48 Robert, 23 Roger, Geoffrey, Ralph, and Peter 16. A century later John was first. In 1347, out of 133 common councilmen for London, first convened, 35 were John, 17 William, 15 Thomas, (St. Thomas of Canterbury was now an institution), 10 Richard, 8 Henry, 8 Robert. In 1385 the Guild of St. George at Norwich contained 377 names. Of these, John engrossed no less than 128, William 47, Thomas 41. The Reformation and the Puritan Commonwealth for a time darkened the fortunes of John and William, but the Protestant accession befriended the latter, and now, as 800 years ago, William is first and John second.

But when we come to realize that nearly one-third of Englishmen were known either by the name of William or John about the year 1300, it will be seen that the pet name and nick form were no freak, but a necessity. We dare not attempt a category, but the surnames of to-day tell us much. Will was quite a distinct youth from Willot, Willot from Wilmot, Wilmot from Wilkin, and Wilkin from Wilcock. There might be half a dozen Johns about the farmstead, but it mattered little so long as one was called Jack, another Jenning, a third Jenkin, a fourth Jackcock (now Jacox as a surname), a fifth Brownjohn, and a sixth Micklejohn, or Littlejohn, or Properjohn (i. e. well built or handsome).

The nick forms are still familiar in many instances, though almost entirely confined to such names as have descended from that day to the present. We still talk of Bob, and Tom, and Dick, and Jack. The introduction of Bible names at the Reformation did them much harm. But the Reformation, and the English Bible combined, utterly overwhelmed the pet desinences, and they succumbed. Emmot and Hamlet lived till the close of the seventeenth century, but only because they had ceased to be looked upon as altered forms of old favourite names, and were entered in vestry books on their own account as orthodox proper names.

II. Pet Forms

These pet desinences were of four kinds.

(a) Kin

The primary sense of kin seems to have been relationship: from thence family, or offspring. The phrases “from generation to generation,” or “from father to son,” in “Cursor Mundi” find a briefer expression:

“This writte was gett fra kin to kin,
That best it cuth to haf in min.”

The next meaning acquired by kin was child, or “young one.” We still speak in a diminutive sense of a manikin, kilderkin, pipkin, lambkin, jerkin, minikin (little minion), or doitkin. Appended to baptismal names it became very familiar. “A litul soth Sermun” says —

“Nor those prude yongemen
That loveth Malekyn,
And those prude maydenes
That loveth Janekyn:
····
Masses and matins
Ne kepeth they nouht,
For Wilekyn and Watekyn
Be in their thouht.”

Unquestionably the incomers from Brabant and Flanders, whether as troopers or artisans, gave a great impulse to the desinence. They tacked it on to everything:

“Rutterkin can speke no Englyssh,
His tongue runneth all on buttyred fyssh,
Besmeared with grece abowte his dysshe
Like a rutter hoyda.”

They brought in Hankin, and Han-cock, from Johannes; not to say Baudkin, or Bodkin, from Baldwin. Baudechon le Bocher in the Hundred Rolls, and Simmerquin Waller, lieutenant of the Castle of Harcourt in “Wars of the English in France,” look delightfully Flemish.

Hankin is found late:

“Thus for her love and loss poor Hankin dies,
His amorous soul down flies.”

“Musarum Deliciæ,” 1655.

To furnish a list of English names ending in kin would be impossible. The great favourites were Hopkin (Robert),³ Lampkin and Lambkin (Lambert), Larkin (Lawrence), Tonkin (Antony), Dickin, Stepkin (Stephen),⁴ Dawkin (David), Adkin,⁵ now Atkin (Adam, not Arthur), Jeffkin (Jeffrey), Pipkin and Potkin (Philip), Simkin, Tipkin (Theobald), Tomkin, Wilkin, Watkin (Walter), Jenkin, Silkin (Sybil),⁶ Malkin (Mary), Perkin (Peter), Hankin (Hans), and Halkin or Hawkin (Henry). Pashkin or Paskin reminds us of Pask or Pash, the old baptismal name for children born at Easter. Judkin (now as a surname also Juckin) was the representative of Judd, that is, Jordan. George afterwards usurped the place. All these names would be entered in their orthodox baptismal style in all formal records. But here and there we get free and easy entries, as for instance:

“Agnes Hobkin-wyf, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

“Henry, son of Halekyn, for 17½ acres of land.” – “De Lacy Inquisition,” 1311.

“Emma Watkyn-doghter, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

“Thi beste cote, Hankyn,
Hath manye moles and spottes,
It moste ben y-wasshe.”

“Piers Plowman.”

Malkin was one of the few English female names with this appendage. Some relics of this form of Mary still remain. Malkin in Shakespeare is the coarse scullery wench:

“The kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram ’bout her reechy neck,
Clambering the walls to eye him.”

“Coriolanus,” Act ii. sc. 1.

While the author of the “Anatomy of Melancholy” is still more unkind, for he says —

“A filthy knave, a deformed quean, a crooked carcass, a maukin, a witch, a rotten post, a hedge-stake may be so set out and tricked up, that it shall make a fair show, as much enamour as the rest.” – Part iii. sect. 2, mem. 2, sub-sect. 3.

From a drab Malkin became a scarecrow. Hence Chaucer talks of “malkin-trash.” As if this were not enough, malkin became the baker’s clout to clean ovens with. Thus, as Jack took the name of the implements Jack used, as in boot-jack, so by easy transitions Malkin. The last hit was when Grimalkin (that is, grey-malkin) came to be the cant term for an old worn-out quean cat. Hence the witch’s name in “Macbeth.”

It will be seen at a glance why Malkin is the only name of this class that has no place among our surnames.⁷ She had lost character. I have suggested, in “English Surnames,” that Makin, Meakin, and Makinson owe their origin to either Mary or Maud. I would retract that supposition. There can be little doubt these are patronymics of Matthew, just as is Maycock or Meacock. Maykinus Lappyng occurs in “Materials for a History of Henry VII.,” and the Maykina Parmunter of the Hundred Rolls is probably but a feminine form. The masculine name was often turned into a feminine, but I have never seen an instance of the reverse order.

Terminations in kin were slightly going down in popular estimation, when the Hebrew invasion made a clean sweep of them. They found shelter in Wales, however, and our directories preserve in their list of surnames their memorial for ever.⁸

(b) Cock

The term “cock” implied pertness: especially the pertness of lusty and swaggering youth. To cock up the eye, or the hat, or the tail, a haycock in a field, a cock-robin in the wood, and a cock-horse in the nursery, all had the same relationship of meaning – brisk action, pert demonstrativeness. The barn-door cockerel was not more cockapert than the boy in the scullery that opened upon the yard where both strutted. Hence any lusty lad was “Cock,” while such fuller titles as Jeff-cock, or Sim-cock, or Bat-cock gave him a preciser individuality. The story of “Cocke Lorelle” is a relic of this; while the prentice lad in “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” acted at Christ College, Cambridge, in 1566, goes by the only name of “Cock.” Tib the servant wench says to Hodge, after the needle is gone —

“My Gammer is so out of course, and frantic all at once,
That Cock our boy, and I, poor wench, have felt it on our bones.”

By-and-by Gammer calls the lad to search:

“Come hither, Cock: what, Cock, I say.
Cock.How, Gammer?
Gammer. Go, hie thee soon: and grope behind the old brass pan.”

Such terms as nescock, meacock, dawcock, pillicock, or lobcock may be compounds – unless they owe their origin to “cockeney,” a spoiled, home-cherished lad. In “Wit without Money” Valentine says —

“For then you are meacocks, fools, and miserable.”

In “Appius and Virginia” (1563) Mausipula says (Act i. sc. 1) —

“My lady’s great business belike is at end,
When you, goodman dawcock, lust for to wend.”

In “King Lear”

“Pillicock sat on pillicock-hill”

seems an earlier rendering of the nursery rhyme —

“Pillicock, Pillicock sate on a hill,
If he’s not gone, he sits there still.”

In “Wily Beguiled” Will Cricket says to Churms —

“Why, since you were bumbasted that your lubberly legs would not carry your lobcock body.”

These words have their value in proving how familiarly the term cock was employed in forming nicknames. That it should similarly be appended to baptismal names, especially the nick form of Sim, Will, or Jeff, can therefore present no difficulty.

Cock was almost as common as “kin” as a desinence. Sim-cock was Simcock to the end of his days, of course, if his individuality had come to be known by the name.

“Hamme, son of Adecock, held 29 acres of land.

“Mokock de la Lowe, for 10 acres.

“Mokock dal Moreclough, for six acres.

“Dik, son of Mocock, of Breercroft, for 20 acres.” – “The De Lacy Inquisition,” 1311.

Adecock is Adam, and Mocock or Mokock is Matthew. In the same way Sander-cock is a diminutive of Sander, Lay-cock of Lawrence, Luccock of Luke, Pidcock and Peacock of Peter, Maycock and Mycock of Matthew, Jeff-cock of Jeffrey, Johncock of John, Hitch-cock or Hiscock or Heacock of Higg or Hick (Isaac), Elcock of Ellis, Hancock or Handcock of Han or Hand (Dutch John), Drocock or Drewcock of Drew, Wilcock of William, Badcock or Batcock of Bartholomew, and Bawcock of Baldwin, Adcock or Atcock of Adam, Silcock of Silas, and Palcock of Paul:

“Johannes Palcock, et Beatrix uxor ejus, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

“Ricardus Sylkok, et Matilda uxor ejus, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

The difficulty of identification was manifestly lessened in a village or town where Bate could be distinguished from Batkin, and Batkin from Batcock. Hence, again, the common occurrence of such a component as cock. This diminutive is never seen in the seventeenth century; and yet we have many evidences of its use in the beginning of the sixteenth. The English Bible, with its tendency to require the full name as a matter of reverence, while it supplied new names in the place of the old ones that were accustomed to the desinence, caused this. It may be, too, that the new regulation of Cromwell in 1538, requiring the careful registration of all baptized children, caused parents to lay greater stress on the name as it was entered in the vestry-book.

Any way, the sixteenth century saw the end of names terminating in “cock.”

(c.) On or In

A dictionary instance is “violin,” that is, a little viol, a fiddle of four strings, instead of six. This diminutive, to judge from the Paris Directory, must have been enormously popular with our neighbours. Our connection with Normandy and France generally brought the fashion to the English Court, and in habits of this kind the English folk quickly copied their superiors. Terminations in kin and cock were confined to the lower orders first and last. Terminations in on or in, and ot or et, were the introduction of fashion, and being under patronage of the highest families in the land, naturally obtained a much wider popularity.

Our formal registers, again, are of little assistance. Beton is coldly and orthodoxly Beatrice or Beatrix in the Hundred Rolls. Only here and there can we gather that Beatrice was never so called in work-a-day life. In “Piers Plowman” it is said —

“Beton the Brewestere
Bade him good morrow.”

And again, later on:

“And bade Bette cut a bough,
And beat Betoun therewith.”

If Alice is Alice in the registrar’s hands, not so in homely Chaucer:

“This Alison answered: Who is there
That knocketh so? I warrant him a thefe.”

Or take an old Yorkshire will:

“Item: to Symkyn, and Watkyn, and Alison Meek, servandes of John of Bolton, to ilk one of yaim, 26s. 8d.” – “Test. Ebor.” iii. 21. Surtees Society.

Hugh, too, gets his name familiarly entered occasionally:

“Hugyn held of the said earl an oxgang of land, and paid yearly iiis. vid.” – “The De Lacy Inquisition,” 1311.

Huggins in our directories is the memorial of this. But in the north of England Hutchin was a more popular form. In the “Wappentagium de Strafford” occurs —

“Willelmus Huchon, & Matilda uxor ejus, iiiid.”

Also —

“Elena Houchon-servant, iiiid.”

that is, Ellen the servant of Houchon. Our Hutchinsons are all north of Trent folk. Thus, too, Peter (Pier) became Perrin:

“The wife of Peryn.” – “Manor of Ashton-under-Lyne,” Chetham Society, p. 87.

Marion, from Mary, is the only familiar instance that has descended to us, and no doubt we owe this fact to Maid Marion, the May-lady. Many a Mary Ann, in these days of double baptismal names, perpetuates the impression that Marion or Marian was compounded of Mary and Ann.

Of familiar occurrence were such names as Perrin, from Pierre, Peter; Robin and Dobbin, from Rob and Dob, Robert; Colin, from Col, Nicholas; Diccon, from Dick, Richard; Huggin, from Hugh; Higgin, from Hick or Higg, Isaac; Figgin, from Figg, Fulke;⁹ Phippin, from Phip and Philip; and Gibbin, or Gibbon, or Gilpin, from Gilbert. Every instance proves the debt our surnames have incurred by this practice.

Several cases are obscured by time and bad pronunciation. Our Tippings should more rightly be Tippins, originally Tibbins, from Tibbe (Theobald); our Collinges and Collings, Collins; and our Gibbings, Gibbins. Our Jennings should be Jennins; Jennin Caervil was barber to the Earl of Suffolk in the French wars (“Wars of England in France,” Henry VI.). Robing had early taken the place of Robin:

“Johanne Robyng-doghter, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

Such entries as Raoulin Meriel and Raoul Partrer (this Raoul was private secretary to Henry VI.) remind us of the former popularity of Ralph and of the origin of our surnames Rawlins and Rawlinson:

“Dionisia Rawlyn-wyf, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

Here again, however, the “in” has become “ing,” for Rawlings is even more common than Rawlins. Deccon and Dickin have got mixed, and both are now Dickens, although Dicconson exists as distinct from Dickinson. Spenser knew the name well:

“Diggon Davie, I bid her ‘good-day;’
Or Diggon her is, or I missay.”

“Matilda Dicon-wyf, webester, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

The London Directory contains Lamming and Laming. Alongside are Lampin, Lamin, and Lammin. These again are more correct, all being surnames formed from Lambin, a pet form of Lambert:

“Willelmus Lambyn, et Alicia uxor ejus, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

Lambyn Clay played before Edward at Westminster at the great festival in 1306 (Chappell’s “Popular Music of ye Olden Time,” i. 29). The French forms are Lambin, Lamblin, and Lamberton, all to be met with in the Paris Directory.

All these names are relics of a custom that is obsolete in England, though not with our neighbours.

(d.) Ot and Et

These are the terminations that ran first in favour for many generations.

This diminutive ot or et is found in our language in such words as poppet, jacket, lancet, ballot, gibbet, target, gigot, chariot, latchet, pocket, ballet. In the same way a little page became a paget, and hence among our surnames Smallpage, Littlepage, and Paget.

Coming to baptism, we find scarcely a single name of any pretensions to popularity that did not take to itself this desinence. The two favourite girl-names in Yorkshire previous to the Reformation were Matilda and Emma. Two of the commonest surnames there to-day are Emmott and Tillot, with such variations as Emmett and Tillett, Emmotson and Tillotson. The archbishop came from Yorkshire. Tyllot Thompson occurs under date 1414 in the “Fabric Rolls of York Minster” (Surtees Society).

“Rome, April 27, Eugenius IV. (1433). Dispensation from Selow for Richard de Akerode and Emmotte de Greenwood to marry, they being related in the fourth degree.” – “Test. Ebor.,” iii. 317.

“Licence to the Vicar of Bradford to marry Roger Prestwick and Emmote Crossley. Bannes thrice in one day” (1466). – “Test. Ebor.,” iii. 338.

Isabella was also popular in Yorkshire: hence our Ibbots and Ibbotsons, our Ibbetts and Ibbetsons. Registrations such as “Ibbota filia Adam,” or “Robert filius Ibote,” are of frequent occurrence in the county archives. The “Wappentagium de Strafford” has:

“Johanna Ibot-doghter, iiiid.

“Willelmus Kene, et Ibota uxor ejus, iiiid.

“Thomas Gaylyour, et Ebbot sa femme, iiiid.”

Cecilia became Sissot or Cissot:

“Willelmus Crake, & Cissot sa femme, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

In the “Manor of Ashton-under-Lyne” (Chetham Society), penned fortunately for our purpose in every-day style, we have such entries as —

“Syssot, wife of Patrick.

“Syssot, wife of Diccon Wilson.

“Syssot, wife of Thomas the Cook.

“Syssot, wife of Jak of Barsley.”

Four wives named Cecilia in a community of some twenty-five families will be evidence enough of the popularity of that name. All, however, were known in every-day converse as Sissot.

Of other girl-names we may mention Mabel, which from Mab became Mabbott; Douce became Dowcett and Dowsett; Gillian or Julian, from Gill or Jill (whence Jack and Jill), became Gillot, Juliet, and Jowett; Margaret became Margett and Margott, and in the north Magot. Hence such entries from the Yorkshire parchments, already quoted, as —

“Thomas de Balme, et Magota uxor ejus, chapman, iiiid.

“Hugo Farrowe, et Magota uxor ejus, smyth, iiiid.

“Johannes Magotson, iiiid.”

Custance became Cussot, from Cuss or Cust, the nick form. The Hundred Rolls contain a “Cussot Colling” – a rare place to find one of these diminutives, for they are set down with great clerkly formality.

From Lettice, Lesot was obtained:

“Johan Chapman, & Lesot sa femme, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

And Dionisia was very popular as Diot:

“Johannes Chetel, & Diot uxor ejus, iiiid.

“Willelmus Wege, & Diot uxor ejus, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

Of course, it became a surname:

“Robertus Diot, & Mariona uxor ejus, iiiid.

“Willelmus Diotson, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

It is curious to observe that Annot, which now as Annette represents Anne, in Richard II.’s day was extremely familiar as the diminutive of Annora or Alianora. So common was Annot in North England that the common sea-gull came to be so known. It is a mistake to suppose that Annot had any connection with Anna. One out of every eight or ten girls was Annot in Yorkshire at a time when Anna is never found to be in use at all:

“Stephanus Webester, & Anota uxor ejus, iiiid.

“Richard Annotson, wryght, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

As Alianora and Eleanora are the same, so were Enot and Anot:

“Henricus filius Johannis Enotson, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

Again, Eleanor became Elena, and this Lina and Linot. Hence in the Hundred Rolls we find “Linota atte Field.” In fact, the early forms of Eleanor are innumerable. The favourite Sibilla became Sibot:

“Johannes de Estwode, et Sibota uxor ejus, iiiid.

“Willelmus Howeson, et Sibbota uxor ejus, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

Mary not merely became Marion, but Mariot, and from our surnames it would appear the latter was the favourite:

“Isabella serviens Mariota Gulle, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

“Mariota in le Lane.” – Hundred Rolls.

Eve became Evot, Adam and Eve being popular names. In the will of William de Kirkby, dated 1391, are bequests to “Evæ uxori Johannes Parvying” and “Willielmo de Rowlay,” and later on he refers to them again as the aforementioned “Evotam et dictum Willielmum Rowlay” (“Test. Ebor.,” i. 145. Surtees Society).

But the girl-name that made most mark was originally a boy’s name, Theobald. Tibbe was the nick form, and Tibbot the pet name. Very speedily it became the property of the female sex, such entries as Tibot Fitz-piers ending in favour of Tibota Foliot. After the year 1300 Tib, or Tibet, is invariably feminine. In “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” Gammer says to her maid —

“How now, Tib? quick! let’s hear what news thou hast brought hither.” – Act. i. sc. 5.

In “Ralph Roister Doister,” the pet name is used in the song, evidently older than the play:

“Pipe, merry Annot, etc.,
Trilla, Trilla, Trillary.
Work, Tibet; work, Annot; work, Margery;
Sew, Tibet; knit, Annot; spin, Margery;
Let us see who will win the victory.”

Gib, from Gilbert, and Tib became the common name for a male and female cat. Scarcely any other terms were employed from 1350 to 1550:

“For right no more than Gibbe, our cat,
That awaiteth mice and rattes to killen,
Ne entend I but to beguilen.”

Hence both Tibet and Gibbet were also used for the same; as in the old phrase “flitter-gibbett,” for one of wanton character. Tom in tom-cat came into ordinary parlance later. All our modern Tibbots, Tibbetts, Tibbitts, Tippitts, Tebbutts, and their endless other forms, are descended from Tibbe.

Coming to boys’ names, all our Wyatts in the Directory hail from Guiot,¹⁰ the diminutive of Guy, just as Wilmot from William:

“Adam, son of Wyot, held an oxgang of land.” – “De Lacy Inquisition.”

“Ibbote Wylymot, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

Payn is met in the form of Paynot and Paynet, Warin as Warinot, Drew as Drewet, Philip as Philpot, though this is feminine sometimes:

“Johannes Schikyn, et Philipot uxor ejus, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

Thomas is found as Thomaset, Higg (Isaac) as Higgot, Jack as Jackett, Hal (Henry) as Hallet (Harriot or Harriet is now feminine), and Hugh or Hew as Hewet:

“Dionisia Howet-doghter, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

The most interesting, perhaps, of these examples is Hamnet, or Hamlet. Hamon, or Hamond, was introduced from Normandy:

“Hamme, son of Adcock, held 29 acres of land.” – “De Lacy Inquisition,” 1311.

It became a favourite among high and low, and took to itself the forms of Hamonet and Hamelot:

“The wife of Richard, son of Hamelot.” – “De Lacy Inquisition,” 1311.

These were quickly abbreviated into Hamnet and Hamlet. They ran side by side for several centuries, and at last, like Emmot, defied the English Bible, the Reformation, and even the Puritan period, and lived unto the eighteenth century. Hamlet Winstanley, the painter, was born in 1700, at Warrington, and died in 1756. In Kent’s London Directory for 1736 several Hamnets occur as baptismal names. Shakespeare’s little son was Hamnet, or Hamlet, after his godfather Hamnet Sadler. I find several instances where both forms are entered as the name of the same boy:

“Nov. 13, 1502. Item: the same day to Hamlet Clegge, for money by him layed out … to the keper of Dachet Ferrey in rewarde for conveying the Quenes grace over Thamys there, iiis. iiiid.”

Compare this with —

“June 13, 1502. Item: the same day to Hampnet Clegge, for mone by him delivered to the Quene for hir offring to Saint Edward at Westm., vis. viiid.” – “Privy Purse Expenses, Eliz. of York,” pp. 21 and 62.

Speaking of Hamelot, we must not forget that ot and et sometimes became elot or elet. As a diminutive it is found in such dictionary words as bracelet, tartlet, gimblet, poplet (for poppet). The old ruff or high collar worn alike by men and women was styled a partlet:

“Jan. 1544. Item: from Mr. Braye ii. high collar partletts, iiis. ixd.” – “Privy Purse Expenses, Princess Mary.”

Hence partlet, a hen, on account of the ruffled feathers, a term used alike by Chaucer and Shakespeare.

In our nomenclature we have but few traces of it. In France it was very commonly used. But Hughelot or Huelot, from Hugh, was popular, as our Hewletts can testify. Richelot for Richard, Hobelot and Robelot for Robert, Crestolot for Christopher, Cesselot for Cecilia, and Barbelot for Barbara, are found also, and prove that the desinence had made its mark.

Returning, however, to ot and et: Eliot or Elliot, from Ellis (Elias), had a great run. In the north it is sometimes found as Aliot:

“Alyott de Symondeston held half an oxgang of land, xixd.” – “De Lacy Inquisition,” 1311.

The feminine form was Elisot or Elicot, although this was used also for boys. The will of William de Aldeburgh, written in 1319, runs —

“Item: do et lego Elisotæ domicellæ meæ 40s.” – “Test. Ebor.,” i. 151.

The will of Patrick de Barton, administered in the same year, says —

“Item: lego Elisotæ, uxori Ricardi Bustard unam vaccam, et 10s.” – “Test. Ebor.,” i. 155.

“Eliseus Carpenter, cartwyth, et Elesot uxor ejus, vid.” – W. D. S.

As Ellis became Ellisot, so Ellice became Ellicot, whence the present surname. Bartholomew became Bartelot, now Bartlett, and from the pet form Toll, or Tolly, came Tollett and Tollitt.

It is curious to notice why Emmot and Hamlet, or Hamnet, survived the crises that overwhelmed the others. Both became baptismal names in their own right. People forgot in course of time that they were diminutives of Emma and Hamond, and separated them from their parents. This did not come about till the close of Elizabeth’s reign, so they have still the credit of having won a victory against terrible odds, the Hebrew army. Hamnet Shakespeare was so baptized. Hamon or Hamond would have been the regular form.

Looking back, it is hard to realize that a custom equally affected by prince and peasant, as popular in country as town, as familiar in Yorkshire and Lancashire as in London and Winchester, should have been so completely uprooted, that ninety-nine out of the hundred are now unaware that it ever existed. This was unmistakably the result of some disturbing element of English social life. At the commencement of the sixteenth century there was no appearance of this confusion. In France the practice went on without let or hindrance. We can again but attribute it to the Reformation, and the English Bible, which swept away a large batch of the old names, and pronounced the new without addition or diminution. When some of the old names were restored, it was too late to fall back upon the familiarities that had been taken with them in the earlier period.

(e.) Double Terminatives

In spite of the enormous popularity in England of ot and et, they bear no proportion to the number in France. In England our local surnames are two-fifths of the whole. In France patronymic surnames are almost two-fifths of the whole. Terminatives in on or in, and ot and et, have done this. We in England only adopted double diminutives in two cases, those of Colinet and Robinet, or Dobinet, and both were rarely used. Robinet has come down to us as a surname; and Dobinet so existed till the middle of the fifteenth century, for one John Dobynette is mentioned in an inventory of goods, 1463 (Mun. Acad. Oxon.). This Dobinet seems to have been somewhat familiarly used, for Dobinet Doughty is Ralph’s servant in “Ralph Roister Doister.” Matthew Merrygreek says —

“I know where she is: Dobinet hath wrought some wile.
Tibet Talkapace. He brought a ring and token, which he said was sent
From our dame’s husband.” – Act. iii. sc. 2.

Colin is turned into Colinet in Spenser’s “Shepherd’s Calendar,” where Colin beseeches Pan:

“Hearken awhile from thy green cabinet,
The laurel song of careful Colinet?”

Jannet is found as Janniting (Jannetin) once on English soil, for in the “London Chanticleers,” a comedy written about 1636, Janniting is the apple-wench. Welcome says —

“Who are they which they’re enamoured so with?

Bung. The one’s Nancy Curds, and the other Hanna Jenniting: Ditty and Jenniting are agreed already … the wedding will be kept at our house.” – Scene xiii.

But the use of double diminutives was of every-day practice in Normandy and France, and increased their total greatly. I take at random the following surnames (originally, of course, christian names) from the Paris Directory: – Margotin, Marioton, Lambinet (Lambert), Perrinot, Perrotin, Philiponet, Jannotin, Hugonet, Huguenin, Jacquinot, and Fauconnet (English Fulke). Huguenin (little wee Hugh) repeats the same diminutive; Perrinot and Perrotin (little wee Peter) simply reverse the order of the two diminutives. The “marionettes” in the puppet-show take the same liberty with Mariotin (little wee Mary) above mentioned. Hugonet, of course, is the same as Huguenot; and had English, not to say French, writers remembered this old custom, they would have found no difficulty in reducing the origin of the religious sect of that name to an individual as a starting-point. Guillotin (little wee William) belongs to the same class, and descended from a baptismal name to become the surname of the famous doctor who invented the deadly machine that bears his title. I have discovered one instance of this as a baptismal name, viz. Gillotyne Hansake (“Wars of English in France: Henry VI.,” vol. ii. p. 531).

Returning to England, we find these pet forms in use well up to the Reformation:

“Nov., 1543. Item: geven to Fylpot, my Lady of Suffolk’s lackaye, viis. vid.

“June, 1537. Item: payed to Typkyn for cherys, xxd.” – “Privy Purse Expenses, Princess Mary.”

“1548, July 22. Alson, d. of Jenkin Rowse.” – St. Columb Major.

“1545, Oct. 3. Baptized Alison, d. of John James.” – Ditto.¹¹

“Ralph Roister Doister,” written not earlier than 1545, and not later than 1550, by Nicholas Udall, contains three characters styled Annot Alyface, Tibet Talkapace, and Dobinet Doughty. Christian Custance, Sim Suresby, Madge Mumblecheek, and Gawyn Goodluck are other characters, all well-known contemporary names.

In “Thersites,” an interlude written in 1537, there is mention of

“Simkin Sydnam, Sumnor,
That killed a cat at Cumnor.”

Jenkin Jacon is introduced, also Robin Rover. In a book entitled “Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic” (Henry VIII.), we find a document (numbered 1939, and dated 1526) containing a list of the household attendants and retinue of the king. Even here, although so formal a record, there occurs the name of “Hamynet Harrington, gentleman usher.”

We may assert with the utmost certainty that, on the eve of the Hebrew invasion, there was not a baptismal name in England of average popularity that had not attached to it in daily converse one or other of these diminutives —kin, cock, in, on, ot, and et; not a name, too, that, before it had thus attached them, had not been shorn of all its fulness, and curtailed to a monosyllabic nick form. Bartholomew must first become Bat before it becomes Batcock, Peter must become Pierre before Perrot can be formed, Nicholas must be abbreviated to Col or Cole before Col or Cole can be styled Colin, and Thomas must be reduced to Tom before Tomkin can make his appearance.

Several names had attached to themselves all these enclytics. For instance, Peter is met with, up to the crisis we are about to consider, in the several shapes of Perkin or Parkin, Peacock, Perrot, and Perrin; and William as Willin (now Willing and Willan in our directories), Wilcock, Wilkin, and Wilmot, was familiar to every district in the country.

III. Scripture Names already in use at the Reformation

It now remains simply to consider the state of nomenclature in England at the eve of the Reformation in relation to the Bible. Four classes may be mentioned.

(a.) Mystery Names

The leading incidents of Bible narrative were familiarized to the English lower orders by the performance of sacred plays, or mysteries, rendered under the supervision of the Church. To these plays we owe the early popularity of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Sara, Daniel, Sampson, Susanna, Judith, Hanna or Anna, and Hester. But the Apocryphal names were not frequently used till about 1500. Scarcely any diminutives are found of them. On the other hand, Adam became Adcock and Adkin; Eve, Evott and Evett; Isaac, Hickin, and Higgin, and Higgot, and Higget; Joseph, Joskin; and Daniel, Dankin and Dannet.

(b.) Crusade Names

The Crusaders gave us several prominent names. To them we are indebted for Baptist, Ellis, and Jordan: and John received a great stimulus. The sacred water brought in the leathern bottle was used for baptismal purposes. The Jordan commemorated John the Baptist, the second Elias, the forerunner and baptizer of Jesus Christ. Children were styled by these incidents. Jordan became popular through Western Europe. In England he gave us, as already observed, Judd, Judkin, Judson, Jordan, and Jordanson. Elias, as Ellis, took about the eighth place of frequency, and John, for a while, the first.

(c.) The Saints’ Calendar

The legends of the saints were carefully taught by the priesthood, and the day as religiously observed. All children born on these holy days received the name of the saint commemorated: St. James’s Day, or St. Nicholas’s Day, or St. Thomas’s Day, saw a small batch of Jameses, Nicholases, and Thomases received into the fold of the Church. In other cases the gossip had some favourite saint, and placed the child under his or her protection. Of course, it bore the patron’s name. A large number of these hagiological names were extra-Biblical – such as Cecilia, Catharine, or Theobald. Of these I make no mention here. All the Apostles, save Judas, became household names, John, Simon, Peter, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, Thomas, and Philip being the favourites. Paul and Timothy were also utilized, the former being always found as Pol.

(d.) Festival Names

If a child was born at Whitsuntide or Easter, Christmas or Epiphany, like Robinson Crusoe’s man Friday, or Thursday October Christian of the Pitcairn islanders, he received the name of the day. Hence our once familiar names of Noel or Nowell, Pask or Pascal, Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany or Tiffany.

It will be observed that all these imply no direct or personal acquaintance with the Scriptures. All came through the Church. All, too, were in the full tide of prosperity – with the single exception of Jordan, which was nearly obsolete – when the Bible, printed into English and set up in our churches, became an institution. The immediate result was that the old Scripture names of Bartholomew, Peter, Philip, and Nicholas received a blow much deadlier than that received by such Teutonic names as Robert, Richard, Roger, and Ralph. But that will be brought out as we progress.

The subject of the influence of an English Bible upon English nomenclature is not uninteresting. It may be said of the “Vulgar Tongue” Bible that it revolutionized our nomenclature within the space of forty years, or little over a generation. No such crisis, surely, ever visited a nation’s register before, nor can such possibly happen again. Every home felt the effect. It was like the massacre of the innocents in Egyptian days: “There was not one house where there was not one dead.” But in Pharoah’s day they did not replace the dead with the living. At the Reformation such a locust army of new names burst upon the land that we may well style it the Hebrew Invasion.

CHAPTER I.
THE HEBREW INVASION

“With what face can they object to the king the bringing in of forraigners, when themselves entertaine such an army of Hebrewes?” The Character of a London Diurnall (Dec. 1644).

“Albeit in our late Reformation some of good consideration have brought in Zachary, Malachy, Josias, etc., as better agreeing with our faith, but without contempt of Country names (as I hope) which have both good and gracious significations, as shall appeare hereafter.” – Camden, Remaines. 1614.

I. The March of the Army

The strongest impress of the English Reformation to-day is to be seen in our font-names. The majority date from 1560, the year when the Genevan Bible was published. This version ran through unnumbered editions, and for sixty, if not seventy, years was the household Bible of the nation. The Genevan Bible was not only written in the vulgar tongue, but was printed for vulgar hands. A moderate quarto was its size; all preceding versions, such as Coverdale’s, Matthew’s, and of course the Great Bible, being the ponderous folio, specimens of which the reader will at some time or other have seen. The Genevan Bible, too, was the Puritan’s Bible, and was none the less admired by him on account of its Calvinistic annotations.

But although the rage for Bible names dates from the decade 1560-1570, which decade marks the rise of Puritanism, there had been symptoms of the coming revolution as early as 1543. Richard Hilles, one of the Reformers, despatching a letter from Strasburg, November 15, 1543, writes:

“My wife says she has no doubt but that God helped her the sooner in her confinement by reason of your good prayers. On the second of this month she brought forth to the Church of Christ a son, who, as the women say, is quite large enough for a mother of tall stature, and whom I immediately named Gershom.” – “Original Letters,” 1537-1558, No. cxii. Parker Society.

We take up our Bibles, and find that of Zipporah it is said —

“And she bare him (Moses) a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.” – Exod. ii. 22.

The margin says, “a desolate stranger.” At this time Moses was fled from Pharaoh, who would kill him. The parallel to Richard Hilles’s mind was complete. This was in 1643.¹²

In Mr. Tennyson’s drama “Mary,” we have the following scene between Gardiner and a yokel:

“Gardiner.I distrust thee,
There is a half voice, and a lean assent:
What is thy name?
Man. Sanders!
Gardiner. What else?
Man. Zerrubabel.”

The Laureate was right to select for this rebellious Protestant a name that was to be popular throughout Elizabeth’s reign; but poetic license runs rather far in giving this title to a full-grown man in any year of Mary’s rule. Sanders might have had a young child at home so styled, but for himself it was practically impossible. So clearly defined is the epoch that saw, if not one batch of names go out, at least a new batch come in. Equally marked are the names from the Bible which at this date were in use, and those which were not. Of this latter category Zerrubabel was one.

In the single quotation from Hilles’s letter of 1543 we see the origin of the great Hebrew invasion explained. The English Bible had become a fact, and the knowledge of its personages and narratives was becoming directly acquired. In every community up and down the country it was as if a fresh spring of clear water had been found, and every neighbour could come with jug or pail, and fill it when and how they would. One of the first impressions made seems to have been this: children in the olden time received as a name a term that was immediately significant of the circumstances of their birth. Often God personally, through His prophets or angelic messenger, acted as godparent indeed, and gave the name, as in Isaiah viii. 1, 3, 4:

“Moreover the Lord said unto me, Take thee a great roll, and write in it with a man’s pen concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

“And I went unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz.

“For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.”

Here was a name palpably significant. Even before they knew its exact meaning the name was enrolled in English church registers, and by-and-by zealot Puritans employed it as applicable to English Church politics.

All the patriarchs, down to the twelve sons of Jacob, had names of direct significance given them. Above all, a peculiar emphasis was laid upon all the titles of Jesus Christ, as in Isaiah vii. 14:

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

At the same time that this new revelation came, a crisis was going on of religion. The old Romish Church was being uprooted, or, rather, a new system was being grafted upon its stock, for the links have never been broken. The saints were shortly to be tabooed by the large mass of English folk; the festivals were already at a discount. Simultaneously with the prejudice against the very names of their saints and saintly festivals, arose the discovery of a mine of new names as novel as it was unexhaustible. They not merely met the new religious instinct, but supplied what would have been a very serious vacuum.

But we must at once draw a line between the Reformation and Puritanism. Previous to the Reformation, so far as the Church was concerned, there had been to a certain extent a system of nomenclature. The Reformation abrogated that system, but did not intentionally adopt a new one. Puritanism deliberately supplied a well-weighed and revised scheme, beyond which no adopted child of God must dare to trespass. Previous to the Reformation, the priest, with the assent of the gossip, gave the babe the name of the saint who was to be its patron, or on whose day the birth or baptism occurred. If the saint was a male, and the infant a female, the difficulty was overcome by giving the name a feminine form. Thus Theobald become Theobalda; and hence Tib and Tibot became so common among girls, that finally they ceased to represent boys at all. If it were one of the great holy days, the day or season itself furnished the name. Thus it was Simon, or Nicholas, or Cecilia, or Austen, or Pentecost, or Ursula, or Dorothy, became so familiar. From the reign of Elizabeth the clergy, and Englishmen generally, gave up this practice. Saints who could not boast apostolic honours were rejected, and holy men of lesser prestige, together with a large batch of virgins and martyrs of the Agnes, Catharine, and Ursula type, who belonged to Church history, received but scant attention. As a matter of course their names lapsed. But the nation stood by the old English names not thus popishly tainted. Against Geoffrey, Richard, Robert, and William, they had no prejudice: nay, they clung to them. The Puritan rejected both classes. He was ever trotting out his two big “P’s,” – Pagan and Popish. Under the first he placed every name that could not be found in the Scriptures, and under the latter every title in the same Scriptures, and the Church system founded on them, that had been employed previous, say, to the coronation day of Edward VI. Of this there is the clearest proof. In a “Directory of Church Government,” found among the papers of Cartwright, and written as early as 1565, there is the following order regarding and regulating baptism: —

“They which present unto baptism, ought to be persuaded not to give those that are baptized the names of God, or of Christ, or of angels, or of holy offices, as of baptist, evangelist, etc., nor such as savour of paganism or popery: but chiefly such whereof there are examples, in the Holy Scriptures, in the names of those who are reported in them to have been godly and virtuous.” – Neale, vol. v. Appendix, p. 15.

Nothing can be more precise than this. To the strict Puritan to reject the Richards, Mileses, and Henrys of the Teutonic, and the Bartholomews, Simons, Peters, and Nicholases of the ecclesiastic class, was to remove the Canaanite out of the land.

How early this “article of religion” was obeyed, one or two quotations will show. Take the first four baptismal entries in the Canterbury Cathedral register:

“1564, Dec. 3. Abdias, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.

“1567, April 26. Barnabas, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.

“1569, June 1. Ezeckiell, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.

“1572, Feb. 10. Posthumus, the sonne of Robert Pownoll.”

Another son seems to have been Philemon:

“1623, April 27. John, the sonne of Philemon Pownoll.”

A daughter “Repentance” must be added:

“1583, Dec. 8. Married William Arnolde and Repentance Pownoll.”

Take another instance, a little later, from the baptisms of St. Peter’s, Cornhill:

“1589, Nov. 2. Bezaleell, sonne of Michaell Nichollson, cordwayner.

“1599, Sep. 23. Aholiab, sonne of Michaell Nicholson, cordwainer.

“1595, May 18. Sara, daughter of Michaell Nichollson, cobler.

“1599, Nov. 1. Buried Rebecca, daughter of Michaell Nicholson, cordwainer, 13 yeares.”

Rebecca, therefore, would be baptized in 1586. Sara and Aholiab died of the plague in 1603. Both old Robert Pownoll and the cobler must have been Puritans of a pronounced type.

The Presbyterian clergy were careful to set an example of right name-giving:

“1613, July 28. Baptized Jaell, daughter of Roger Mainwaring, preacher.” – St. Helen, Bishopsgate.

“1617, Jan. 25. Baptized Ezekyell, sonne of Mr. Richard Culverwell, minister.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

“1582, – . Buried Zachary, sonne of Thomas Newton, minister.” – Barking, Essex.

A still more interesting proof comes from Northampton. As an example of bigotry it is truly marvellous. On July 16, 1590, Archbishop Whitgift furnished the Lord Treasurer with the following, amongst many articles against Edmond Snape, curate of St. Peter’s, in that town:

“Item: Christopher Hodgekinson obteyned a promise of the said Snape that he would baptize his child; but Snape added, saying, ‘You must then give it a christian name allowed in the Scriptures.’ Then Hodgekinson told him that his wife’s father, whose name was Richard, desired to have the giving of that name.”

At the time of service Snape proceeded till they came to the place of naming: they said “Richard;”

“But hearing them calling it Richard, and that they would not give it any other name, he stayed there, and would not in any case baptize the child. And so it was carried away thence, and was baptized the week following at Allhallows Churche, and called Richard.” – Strype’s “Whitgift,” ii. 9.

This may be an extreme case, but I doubt not the majority of the Presbyterian clergy did their best to uproot the old English names, so far as their power of persuasion could go.

Even the pulpit was used in behalf of the new doctrine. William Jenkin, the afterwards ejected minister, in his “Expositions of Jude,” delivered in Christ Church, London, said, while commenting on the first verse, “Our baptismal names ought to be such as may prove remembrances of duty.” He then instances Leah, Alpheus, and Hannah as aware of parental obligations in this respect, and adds —

“’Tis good to impose such names as expresse our baptismal promise. A good name is as a thread tyed about the finger, to make us mindful of the errand we came into the world to do for our Master.” – Edition 1652, p. 7.

As a general rule, the New Testament names spread the most rapidly, especially girl-names of the Priscilla, Dorcas, Tabitha, and Martha type. They were the property of the Reformation. Damaris bothered the clerks much, and is found indifferently as Tamaris, Damris, Dammeris, Dampris, and Dameris. By James I.’s day it had become a fashionable name:

“1617, April 13. Christened Damaris, d. of Doctor Masters.

“ – , May 29. Christened Damaris, d. of Doctor Kingsley.” – Canterbury Cathedral.

Martha, which sprang into instant popularity, is registered at the outset:

“1563, July 25. Christened Martha Wattam.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

Phebe had a great run. The first I have seen is —

“1568, Oct. 24. Christened Phebe, d. of Harry Cut.” – St. Peter, Cornhill.

Dorcas was, perhaps, the prime favourite, often styled and entered Darcas. Every register has it, and every page. A political ballad says —

“Come, Dorcas and Cloe,
With Lois and Zoe,
Young Lettice, and Beterice, and Jane;
Phill, Dorothy, Maud,
Come troop it abroad,
For now is our time to reign.”

Persis, Tryphena, and Tryphosa were also largely used. The earliest Persis I know is —

“1579, Maye 3. Christened Persis, d. of William Hopkinson, minister heare.” – Salehurst.

Some of these names – as, for instance, Priscilla, Damaris, Dorcas, and Phebe – stood in James’s reign almost at the head of girls’ names in England. Indeed, alike in London and the provinces, the list of girl-names at Elizabeth’s death was a perfect contrast to that when she ascended the throne. Then the great national names of Isabella, Matilda, Emma, and Cecilia ruled supreme. Then the four heroines Anna, Judith, Susan, and Hester, one or two of whom were in the Apocryphal narrative, had stamped themselves on our registers in what appeared indelible lines, although they were of much more recent popularity than the others. They lost prestige, but did not die out. Many Puritans had a sneaking fondness for them, finding in their histories a parallel to their own troubles, and perchance they had a private and more godly rendering of the popular ballad of their day:

“In Ninivie old Toby dwelt,
An aged man, and blind was he:
And much affliction he had felt,
Which brought him unto poverty:
He had by Anna, his true wife,
One only sonne, and eke no more.”

Esther¹³ is still popular in our villages, so is Susan. Hannah has her admirers, and only Judith may be said to be forgotten. But their glory was from 1450 to 1550. After that they became secondary personages. Throughout the south of England, especially in the counties that surrounded London, the Bible had been ransacked from nook to corner. The zealots early dived into the innermost recesses of Scripture. They made themselves as familiar with chapters devoted solely to genealogical tables, as to those which they quoted to defend their doctrinal creed. The eighth chapter of Romans was not more studied by them than the thirty-sixth of Genesis, and the dukes of Edom classified in the one were laid under frequent contribution to witness to the adoption treated of in the other. Thus names unheard of in 1558 were “household words” in 1603.

The slowest to take up the new custom were the northern counties. They were out of the current; and Lancashire, besides being inaccessible, had stuck to the old faith. Names lingered on in the Palatinate that had been dead nearly a hundred years in the south. Gawin figures in all northern registers till a century ago, and Thurston¹⁴ was yet popular in the Fylde district, when it had become forgotten in the Fens. Scotland was never touched at all. The General Assembly of 1645 makes no hint on the subject, although it dwelt on nearly every other topic. Nothing demonstrates the clannish feeling of North Britain as this does. At this moment Scotland has scarcely any Bible names.

In Yorkshire, however, Puritanism made early stand, though its effects on nomenclature were not immediately visible. It was like the fire that smoulders among the underwood before it catches flame; it spreads the more rapidly afterwards. The Genevan Bible crept into the dales and farmsteads, and their own primitive life seemed to be but reflected in its pages. The patriarchs lived as graziers, and so did they. There was a good deal about sheep and kine in its chapters, and their own lives were spent among the milk-pails and wool shears. The women of the Old Testament baked cakes, and knew what good butter was. So did the dales’ folk. By slow degrees Cecilia, Isabella, and Emma lapsed from their pedestal, and the little babes were turned into Sarahs, Rebeccas, and Deborahs. As the seventeenth century progressed the state of things became still more changed. There had been villages in Sussex and Kent previous to Elizabeth’s death, where the Presbyterian rector, by his personal influence at the time of baptism, had turned the new generation into a Hebrew colony. The same thing occurred in Yorkshire only half a century later. As nonconformity gained ground, Guy, and Miles, and Peter, and Philip became forgotten. The lads were no sooner ushered into existence than they were transformed into duplicates of Joel, and Amos, and Obediah. The measles still ran through the family, but it was Phineas and Caleb, not Robert and Roger, that underwent the infliction. Chosen leaders of Israel passed through the critical stages of teething. As for the twelve sons of Jacob, they could all have answered to their names in the dames’ schools, through their little apple-cheeked representatives, who lined the rude benches. On the village green, every prophet from Isaiah to Malachi might be seen of an evening playing leap-frog: unless, indeed, Zephaniah was stealing apples in the garth.

From Yorkshire, about the close of the seventeenth century, the rage for Scripture names passed into Lancashire. Nonconformity was making progress; the new industries were already turning villages into small centres of population, and the Church of England not providing for the increase, chapels were built. If we look over the pages of the directories of West Yorkshire and East Lancashire, and strike out the surnames, we could imagine we were consulting anciently inscribed registers of Joppa or Jericho. It would seem as if Canaan and the West Riding had got inextricably mixed.

What a spectacle meets our eye! Within the limits of ten leaves we have three Pharoahs, while as many Hephzibahs are to be found on one single page. Adah and Zillah Pickles, sisters, are milliners. Jehoiada Rhodes makes saws – not Solomon’s sort – and Hariph Crawshaw keeps a farm. Vashni, from somewhere in the Chronicles, is rescued from oblivion by Vashni Wilkinson, coal merchant, who very likely goes to Barzillai Williamson, on the same page, for his joints, Barzillai being a butcher. Jachin, known to but a few as situated in the Book of Kings, is in the person of Jachin Firth, a beer retailer, familiar to all his neighbours. Heber Holdsworth on one page is faced by Er Illingworth on the other. Asa and Joab are extremely popular, while Abner, Adna, Ashael, Erastus, Eunice, Benaiah, Aquila, Elihu, and Philemon enjoy a fair amount of patronage. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, having been rescued from Chaldæan fire, have been deluged with baptismal water. How curious it is to contemplate such entries as Lemuel Wilson, Kelita Wilkinson, Shelah Haggas, Shadrach Newbold, Neriah Pearce, Jeduthan Jempson, Azariah Griffiths, Naphtali Matson, Philemon Jakes, Hameth Fell, Eleph Bisat, Malachi Ford, or Shallum Richardson. As to other parts of the Scriptures, I have lighted upon name after name that I did not know existed in the Bible at all till I looked into the Lancashire and Yorkshire directories.

The Bible has decided the nomenclature of the north of England. In towns like Oldham, Bolton, Ashton, and Blackburn, the clergyman’s baptismal register is but a record of Bible names. A clerical friend of mine christened twins Cain and Abel, only the other day, much against his own wishes. Another parson on the Derbyshire border was gravely informed, at the proper moment, that the name of baptism was Ramoth-Gilead. “Boy or girl, eh?” he asked in a somewhat agitated voice. The parents had opened the Bible hap-hazard, according to the village tradition, and selected the first name the eye fell on. It was but a year ago a little child was christened Tellno in a town within six miles of Manchester, at the suggestion of a cotton-spinner, the father, a workman of the name of Lees, having asked his advice. “I suppose it must be a Scripture name,” said his master. “Oh yes! that’s of course.” “Suppose you choose Tellno,” said his employer. “That’ll do,” replied the other, who had never heard it before, and liked it the better on that account. The child is now Tell-no Lees, the father, too late, finding that he had been hoaxed.¹⁵ “Sirs,” was the answer given to a bewildered curate, after the usual demand to name the child. He objected, but was informed that it was a Scripture name, and the verse “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” was triumphantly appealed to. This reminds one of the Puritan who styled his dog “Moreover” after the dog in the Gospel: “Moreover the dog came and licked his sores.”

There is, again, a story of a clergyman making the customary demand as to name from a knot of women round the font. “Ax her,” said one. Turning to the woman who appeared to be indicated, he again asked, “What name?” “Ax her,” she replied. The third woman, being questioned, gave the same reply. At last he discovered the name to be the Scriptural Achsah, Caleb’s daughter – a name, by the way, which was somewhat popular with our forefathers. No wonder this mistake arose, when Achsah used to be entered in some such manner as this:

“1743-4, Jan. 3. Baptized Axar Starrs (a woman of ripe years), of Stockport.

“1743-4, Jan. 3. Married Warren Davenport, of Stockport, Esq., and Axar Starrs, aforesaid, spinster.” – Marple, Cheshire.

Axar’s father was Caleb Starrs. The scriptural relationship was thus preserved. Achsah crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers, and has prospered there ever since. It is still popular in Devonshire and the south-west of England. All these stories serve to show the quarry whence modern names are hewn.

I have mentioned the north because I have studied its Post-Office Directories carefully. But if any one will visit the shires of Dorset, and Devon, and Hampshire, he will find the same result. The Hebrew has won the day. Just as in England, north of Trent, we can still measure off the ravages of the Dane by striking a line through all local names lying westward ending in “by,” so we have but to count up the baptismal names of the peasantry of these southern counties to see that they have become the bondsmen of an Eastern despot. In fact, go where and when we will from the reign of Elizabeth, we find the same influence at work. Take a few places and people at random.

Looking at our testamentary records, we find the will of Kerenhappuch Benett proved in 1762, while Kerenhappuch Horrocks figures in the Manchester Directory for 1877. Onesiphorus Luffe appears on a halfpenny token of 1666; Habakkuk Leyman, 1650; Euodias Inman, 1650; Melchisedek Fritter, 1650; Elnathan Brock, 1654; and Abdiah Martin, 1664 (“Tokens of Seventeenth Century”). Shallum Stent was married in 1681 (Racton, Sussex); Gershom Baylie was constable of Lewes in 1619, Araunah Verrall fulfilling the same office in 1784. Captain Epenetus Crosse presented a petition to Privy Council in 1660 (C. S. P. Colonial); Erastus Johnson was defendant in 1724, and Cressens Boote twenty years earlier. Barjonah Dove was Vicar of Croxton in 1694. Tryphena Monger was buried in Putney Churchyard in 1702, and Tryphosa Saunders at St. Peter’s, Worcester, in 1770. Mahaliel Payne, Azarias Phesant, and Pelatiah Barnard are recorded in State Papers, 1650-1663 (C. S. P.), and Aminadab Henley was dwelling in Kent in 1640 (“Proceedings in Kent.” Camden Society). Shadrack Pride is a collector of hearth-money in 1699, and Gamaliel Chase is communicated with in 1635 (C. S. P.). Onesiphorus Albin proposes a better plan of collecting the alien duty in 1692 (C. S. P.), while Mordecai Abbott is appointed deputy-paymaster of the forces in 1697 (C. S. P.). Eliakim Palmer is married at Somerset House Chapel in 1740; Dalilah White is buried at Cowley in 1791, and Keziah Simmons is christened there in 1850. Selah Collins is baptized at Dyrham, Gloucestershire, in 1752, and Keturah Jones is interred at Clifton in 1778. Eli-lama-Sabachthani Pressnail was existing in 1862 (Notes and Queries), and the Times recorded a Talitha-Cumi People about the same time. The will of Mahershalalhashbaz Christmas was proved not very long ago. Mrs. Mahershalalhashbaz Bradford was dwelling in Ringwood, Hampshire, in 1863; and on January 31, 1802, the register of Beccles Church received the entry, “Mahershalalhashbaz, son of Henry and Sarah Clarke, baptized,” the same being followed, October 14, 1804, by the baptismal entry of “Zaphnaphpaaneah,” another son of the same couple. A grant of administration in the estate of Acts-Apostles Pegden was made in 1865. His four brothers, older than himself, were of course the four Evangelists, and had there been a sixth I dare say his name would have been “Romans.” An older member of this family, many years one of the kennel-keepers of Tickham fox-hounds, was Pontius Pilate Pegden. At a confirmation at Faversham in 1847, the incumbent of Dunkirk presented to the amazed archbishop a boy named “Acts-Apostles.” These are, of course, mere eccentricities, but eccentricities follow a beaten path, and have their use in calculations of the nature we are considering. Eccentricities in dress are proverbially but exaggerations of the prevailing fashion.

II. POPULARITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The affection felt by the Puritans for the Old Testament has been observed by all writers upon the period, and of the period. Cleveland’s remark, quoted by Hume, is, of course, an exaggeration.

“Cromwell,” he says, “hath beat up his drums cleane through the Old Testament – you may learne the genealogy of our Saviour by the names in his regiment. The muster-master uses no other list than the first chapter of Matthew.”

Lord Macaulay puts it much more faithfully in his first chapter, speaking, too, of an earlier period than the Commonwealth:

“In such a history (i. e. Old Testament) it was not difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to find much that might be distorted to suit their wishes. The extreme Puritans, therefore, began to feel for the Old Testament a preference which, perhaps, they did not distinctly avow even to themselves, but which showed itself in all their sentiments and habits. They paid to the Hebrew language a respect which they refused to that tongue in which the discourses of Jesus and the Epistles of Paul have come down to us. They baptized their children by the names, not of Christian saints, but of Hebrew patriarchs and warriors.”

The Presbyterian clergy had another objection to the New Testament names. The possessors were all saints, and in the saints’ calendar. The apostolic title was as a red rag to his blood-shot eye.

“Upon Saint Peter, Paul, John, Jude, and James,
They will not put the ‘saint’ unto their names,”

says the Water-poet in execrable verse. Its local use was still more trying, as no man could pass through a single quarter of London without seeing half a dozen churches, or lanes, or taverns dedicated to Saint somebody or other.

“Others to make all things recant
The christian and surname of saint,
Would force all churches, streets, and towns
The holy title to renounce.”

To avoid any saintly taint, the Puritan avoided the saints themselves.

But the discontented party in the Church had, as Macaulay says, a decided hankering after the Old Testament on other grounds than this. They paid the Hebrew language an almost superstitious reverence.¹⁶ Ananias, the deacon, in the “Alchemist,” published in 1610, says —

“Heathen Greek, I take it.
Subtle. How! heathen Greek?
Ananias. All’s heathen but the Hebrew.”¹⁷

Bishop Corbet, in his “Distracted Puritan,” has a lance to point at the same weakness:

“In the holy tongue of Canaan
I placed my chiefest pleasure,
Till I pricked my foot
With an Hebrew root,
That I bled beyond all measure.”

In the “City Match,” written by Mayne in 1639, Bannsright says —

“Mistress Dorcas,
If you’ll be usher to that holy, learned woman,
That can heal broken shins, scald heads, and th’ itch,
Your schoolmistress: that can expound, and teaches
To knit in Chaldee, and work Hebrew samplers,
I’ll help you back again.”

The Puritan was ever nicknamed after some Old Testament worthy. I could quote many instances, but let two from the author of the “London Diurnall” suffice. Addressing Prince Rupert, he says —

“Let the zeal-twanging nose, that wants a ridge,
Snuffling devoutly, drop his silver bridge:
Yes, and the gossip’s spoon augment the summe,
Altho’ poor Caleb lose his christendome.”

More racy is his attack on Pembroke, as a member of the Mixed Assembly:

“Forbeare, good Pembroke, be not over-daring:
Such company may chance to spoil thy swearing;
And these drum-major oaths of bulk unruly
May dwindle to a feeble ‘by my truly.’
He that the noble Percy’s blood inherits,
Will he strike up a Hotspur of the spirits?
He’ll fright the Obediahs out of tune,
With his uncircumcis-ed Algernoon:
A name so stubborne, ’tis not to be scanned
By him in Gath with the six fingered hand.”

If a Bible quotation was put into the zealot’s mouth, his cynical foe took care that it should come from the older Scriptures. In George Chapman’s “An Humorous Day’s Work,” after Lemot has suggested a “full test of experiment” to prove her virtue, Florilla the Puritan cries —

“O husband, this is perfect trial indeed.”

To which the gruff Labervele replies —

“And you will try all this now, will you not?

Florilla. Yes, my good head: for it is written, we must pass to perfection through all temptation: Abacuk the fourth.

Labervele. Abacuk! cuck me no cucks: in a-doors, I say: thieves, Puritans, murderers! in a-doors, I say!”

In the same facetious strain, Taylor, the Water-poet, addresses a child thus:

“To learne thy duty reade no more than this:
Paul’s nineteenth chapter unto Genesis.”

This certainly tallies with the charge in “Hudibras,” that they

“Corrupted the Old Testament
To serve the New as precedent.”

This affection for the older Scriptures had its effect upon our nomenclature. No book, no story, especially if gloomy in its outline and melancholy in its issues, escaped the more morbid Puritan’s notice. Every minister of the Lord’s vengeance, every stern witness against natural abomination, the prophet that prophesied ill – these were the names that were in favour. And he that was least bitter in his maledictions was most at a discount. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in every-day request, Shadrach and Abednego being the favourites. Mordecai, too, was daily commemorated; while Jeremiah attained a popularity, as Jeremy, he can never altogether lose. “Lamentations” was so melancholy, that it must needs be personified, don a Puritanical habit, and stand at the font as godfather – I mean witness – to some wretched infant who had done nothing to merit such a fate. “Lamentations Chapman” appeared as defendant in a suit in Chancery about 1590. The exact date is not to be found, but the case was tried towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign (“Chancery Suits, Elizabeth”).

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1

This is easily proved. In the wardrobe accounts for Edward IV., 1480, occur the following items: —

“John Poyntmaker, for pointing of xl. dozen points of silk pointed with agelettes of laton.

“John Carter, for cariage away of a grete loode of robeux that was left in the strete.

“To a laborer called Rychard Gardyner working in the gardyne.

“To Alice Shapster for making and washing of xxiiii. sherts, and xxiiii. stomachers.”

Shapster is a feminine form of Shapper or Shaper – one who shaped or cut out cloths for garments. All these several individuals, having no particular surname, took or received one from the occupation they temporarily followed. – “Privy Purse Expenses, Eliz. of York,” p. 122.

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2

Any number of such instances might be recorded. Mr. W. C. Leighton, in Notes and Queries, February 23, 1861, notices a deed dated 1347, wherein two John de Leightons, brothers, occur. Mr. Waters, in his interesting pamphlet, “Parish Registers” (p. 30), says that Protector Somerset had three sons christened Edward, born respectively 1529, 1539, and 1548. All were living at the same time. He adds that John Leland, the antiquary, had a brother John, and that John White, Bishop of Winchester 1556-1560, was brother to Sir John White, Knight, Lord Mayor in 1563.

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3

“I also give to the said Robert … that land which Hobbekin de Bothum held of me.” – Ext. deed of Sir Robert de Stokeport, Knight, 1189-1199: Earwaker’s “East Cheshire,” p. 334.

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4

I have seen Stepkin as a surname but once. Lieutenant Charles Stepkin served under the Duke of Northumberland, in 1640. – Peacock’s “Army List of Roundheads and Cavaliers,” p. 78.

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5

Adekyn was the simple and only title of the harper to Prince Edward in 1306, who attended the cour plenière held by King Edward at the feast of Whitsuntide at Westminster. – Chappell, “Popular Music of ye Olden Time,” p. 29.

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6

Sill was the nick form of Sybil and Silas till the seventeenth century, when the Puritan Silence seized it. I have only seen one instance of the surname, “John Silkin” being set down as dwelling in Tattenhall, Cheshire, in 1531 (Earwaker’s “East Cheshire,” p. 56).

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7

Nevertheless the surname did exist in Yorkshire in Richard II.’s reign:

“Willelmus Malkynson, and Dionisia uxor ejus, iiiid.” – W. D. S.

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8

I need not quote, in proof of the popularity of kin, our surnames of Simpkinson, Hopkins, Dickens, Dickenson, Watkins, Hawkins, Jenkinson, Atkinson, and the rest. I merely mention that the patronymics ending in kins got abbreviated into kiss, and kes, and ks. Hence the origin of our Perkes, Purkiss, Hawkes, and Hawks, Dawks, Jenks, Juckes, and Jukes (Judkins).

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9

In this class we must assuredly place Figgins. In the Hundred Rolls appears “Ralph, son of Fulchon.” Here, of course, is the diminutive of the once common Fulke. Fick and Figg were the nick forms:

“1 Henry VIII. To Fygge the taborer, 6d.” – Churchwarden’s Books of Kingston-on-Thames, Brand’s “Pop. Ant.,” i. 147.

The London Directory has all the forms and corruptions as surnames, including Fick, Ficken, Figg, Figgs, Figgess, and Figgins.

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10

Guion was not half so popular in England as Guiot. There are fifty-five Wyatts to three Wyons in the London Directory (1870). If Spenser had written of Guyon two centuries earlier, this might have been altered. Guy Fawkes ruined Guy. He can never be so popular again.

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11

Cornwall would naturally be last to be touched by the Reformation. Hence these old forms were still used to the close of Elizabeth’s reign, as for instance:

“1576, March 24. Baptized Ibbett, d. of Kateryne Collys, bastard.

“1576, July 30. Baptized Isott, d. of Richard Moyle.” – St. Columb Major.

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12

This connection of Scripture name with present circumstance ran out its full period. In the diary of Samuel Jeake, a well-known Puritan of Rye, occurs this reference to his son, born August 13, 1688: “At 49 minutes past 11 p.m. exactly (allowing 10′ that the sun sets at Rye before he comes to the level of the horizon, for the watch was set by the sun-setting), my wife was safely delivered of a son, whom I named Manasseh, hoping that God had now made me forget all my toils.” – “History of Town and Port of Rye,” p. 576. Manasseh = forgetfulness.

A bishop may be instanced. Aylmer, who succeeded Sandys in the see of London, was for many years a favourer of Puritanism, and had been one of the exiles. His sixth son was Tobel (i. e. God is good), of Writtle, in Essex. Archbishop Whitgift was his godfather, and the reason for his singular appellation was his mother’s being overturned in a coach without injury when she was pregnant (Cooper’s “Ath. Cant.” ii. 172).

Again: “At Dr. Whitaker’s death, his wife is described as being ‘partui vicina,’ and a week afterwards her child was christened by the name of Jabez, doubtless for the scriptural reason ‘because, she said, I bare him with sorrow.’” – Cooper’s “Ath. Cant.” ii. 197.

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13

Esther’s other name of Hadassah had a share of favour. So late as William and Mary’s reign we find the name in use:

“1691, May 24. Christened Hadasa, daughter of Arthur Richardson.

“1693, Sep. 4. Christened John, son of Nicholas and Hadassah Davis.” – St. Dionis Backchurch.

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14

In the Lancashire “Church Surveys,” 1649-1655, being the first volume of the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society’s publications, edited by Colonel Fishwick, occur Thurston Brown, Thurston Brere, Thurston Brich, on one single page of the index.

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15

To tell a lie is to tell a lee in Lancashire.

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16

Several names seem to have been taken directly from the Hebrew tongue. “Amalasioutha” occurs as a baptismal name in the will of a man named Corbye, 1594 (Rochester Wills); Barijirehah in that of J. Allen, 1651, and Michalaliel among the Pilgrim Fathers (Hotten).

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17

Colonel Cunningham, in his annotations of the “Alchemist,” says, speaking of the New Englanders bearing the Puritan prejudices with them: “So deeply was it rooted, that in the rebellion of the colonies a member of that State seriously proposed to Congress the putting down of the English language by law, and decreeing the universal adoption of the Hebrew in its stead.” – Vol. ii. p. 33, Jonson’s Works.

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