The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way

by Bill Bryson

Two people named, say, Peter living in the same hamlet might adopt or be given second names to help distinguish them from each other—so that one might be called Peter White-Head and the other Peter Son of John (or Johnson)—but these additional names were seldom passed on. The business of acquiring surnames was a long one that evolved over centuries rather than years. As might be expected, it began at the top of the social scale and worked its way down. In England last names did not become usual until after the Norman conquest, and in many other European countries, such as Holland, they evolved much later still. Most surnames come ultimately, if not always obviously, from one of four sources: place-names (e.g., Lincoln, Worthington), nicknames (Whitehead, Armstrong), trade names (Smith, Carpenter), and patronymics, that is names indicating a familial relationship (Johnson, Robertson). In his lifetime a person might be known by a variety of names—for instance, as Peter the Butcher Who Lives by the Well at Putney Green or some such. This would eventually transmute into Peter Butcher or Peter Green or Peter Wells. Often in such cases the person would take his name from the figure on a nearby inn sign. In the Middle Ages, when the ability to read could scarcely be assumed, it was common for certain types of businesses to have symbols outside their doors. The striped barber pole is a holdover from those days. A wine merchant would always have a bush by his front door. Hence his ...