Bernard Deacon's Blog, page 3

Even nicknames start somewhere

If you’re attempting to use past distributions of surnames to pinpoint their origin, names from places (for example Trevithick or Penrose) clearly hold out the best chance of success. Nevertheless, sometimes the early pattern of nicknames or even surnames from first names can provide clues as to where that surname may have first arisen in …

Cornwall’s 50 commonest surnames

Another ten surnames will take us to 50, actually 51 as there is a tie for 50th place. rank surname type number of households 41 Edwards personal name 243 42 Gilbert/Gillbard personal name 239 43 Eddy personal name 237 44 Rundle nickname/personal name 230 45 Uren personal name 228 46 Jeffery personal name 224 47 …

Ten more surnames

The ten surnames below ranked 31st to 40th in the list of the most common surnames in Cornwall in 1861, just before the peak of emigration (and a century before mass immigration began). rank surname type number of households 31 Andrew/s personal name 441 32 Collin(g)s personal name 424 =33 Hill landscape name 399 =33 …

Cornwall’s top surnames: the list continues

We’ve seen a list of the 20 or so commonest surnames in the nineteenth century. But what about the others? Over the next few months when I have time I’ll post the top 200 names (combining spelling variants as far as possible) in batches of ten, with their supposed type and the number of households …

Apologies to the Jameses and Nicholls

Despite up to 500 daily visitors (a few days even more) no-one noticed the deliberate (ahem) mistakes in my list of the 20 most common surnames in Victorian Cornwall.  Where were the Jameses? In fact, they should have been found at number 11 in the list. And what about the Nicholls? Why hadn’t they appeared … Continue reading Apologies to the Jameses and Nicholls →

1. Williams

By now most readers won’t be too surprised to learn that Cornwall’s top surname – and by a long way, 35 per cent more frequent in 1861 than its nearest competitors – was Williams. William was a French version of the Germanic Willihelm that was brought to the British Isles by the Normans. By the … Continue reading 1. Williams →

2. Thomas

The runner up in our top 20 Cornish surnames list is Thomas. Another name from the New Testament, as one of Christ’s disciples Thomas was always going to be a favoured choice for a boys’ first name. This was boosted by the cult of St Thomas, popular among the Normans and the life (and death … Continue reading 2. Thomas →

3. Richards

We’re now down to the last three surnames, each of which could boast over 1,000 households in the Cornwall of 1861. Like Harry and Harris or Stephens and Stevens, Richard and Rickard share the same root, being merely alternative pronunciations (one from Parisian Old French and the other from Picardy.) In medieval Cornwall and England … Continue reading 3. Richards →

4. Rowe

The surname dictionaries insist that Rowe originated in a name for someone living by a hedgerow or in a row of houses. Given its pre-eminent place in the rollcall of Cornish surnames and the personal names origin of the others in this list, that explanation seems a bit lacking. Even if some with the byname … Continue reading 4. Rowe →

5. Stephens or Stevens?

According to The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names, Stephen was the ‘partially vernacular’ medieval form of the biblical name Stephanus, which had its origin in turn in the Greek Staphanas. This first name had become popular as it was the name of the first Christian martyr, stoned to death in Jerusalem three years after the … Continue reading 5. Stephens or Stevens? →