A History of British Surnames

Richard Mckinley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781138836181
• eBook ISBN: 9781317901457
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Aiming to avoid technical terminology, Richard McKinley provides an introduction to the history of hereditary surnames in Britain from their first appearance to the present day. Devoting a chapter to each of the main categories of name, he enables readers to set the facts they discover about their own ancestry, family history and surnames into the context of general surname development. The author deals with those names that originate in England, Wales and Scotland; and since these tend to have their own distinct histories, he discusses developments in each of the three countries separately, wherever appropriate. The book uses the study of surnames to illuminate social history and draws attention to the complex patterns of population mobility that have always characterized British Society. It also describes regional and class differences in surnames, some features of which survive to our own time.

Chapter One The evolution of hereditary surnames

DOI: 10.4324/9781315846637-2

Beginnings of Hereditary Surnames in England

The system of hereditary surnames prevailing today in Britain, in Western Europe generally, and in many other parts of the world, is so familiar, so convenient, and so long established that few people ever give any thought to how or when it arose, or what forces and impulses gave rise to it in the first place. In fact the development of hereditary surnames in this country was a prolonged and complex business, not operating uniformly over the whole of Britain, but subject to marked regional variations and to differences between one social class and another, and propelled into existence by a variety of forces, some of which are not easy to perceive.

As far as can be seen from the very incomplete evidence about the names of the population during the Anglo-Saxon period, stable hereditary surnames, descending over a large number of generations, were not then present in England. There do seem to have been instances where what began as non-hereditary nicknames or bynames eventually descended from father to son, and this might have led to the evolution of hereditary surnames in the course of time, even if the Norman Conquest had not taken place. At the time of the Conquest some of the more important and wealthier noble families in Normandy already possessed hereditary surnames. The evidence for the state of affairs in Normandy before 1066 is not very copious, but hereditary surnames were evidently at that time a relatively new phenomenon, extending back for no more than one or two generations before 1066. It also seems that they were confined to the upper reaches of the landowning class, and that even in that section of society they were by no means universal. Roger de Montgomery, for example, one of the most important landholders in Normandy in 1066 and subsequently a great feudatory in England, had a by-name which does not seem to have been hereditary, though there is some evidence about his father, an earlier Roger. Roger de Montgomery had at least five sons, two of whom are known to have used the name de Montgomery (which in their cases might be reckoned a hereditary surname), while the remaining three used three different by-names, not inherited from their father. This important noble family lacked a surname at the time of the Conquest, or even later. The counts of Eu and Mortain were major landholders, related to the ducal house of Normandy, but both seem to have been known by their titles, and to have lacked surnames, in 1066 and later. The counts of Meulan, landholders in Normandy before the Conquest, later important tenants-in-chief in England, and earls of Leicester, lacked a hereditary surname at the time of the Conquest, and remained without one all through the twelfth century. (The earls of Leicester are sometimes referred to by historians as the Beaumont family; the name de Beaumont was used by Robert, the first earl of Leicester, and it may have been used by his father, who was also the lord of Beaumont, so that to an extent the name was hereditary, but the second, third, and fourth earls all used other by-names.) Other examples could be given of Norman landholders being without surnames at the time of the Conquest. A further indication of the infrequency of surnames among the Norman nobility at the time of the Conquest is the widespread tendency after 1066 for Normans holding land in England to adopt by-names derived from the names of places on their newly-acquired English estates. There is much evidence of this from the names of tenants listed in Domesday Book, and it concerns tenants at various levels. For example, Robert de Stafford, a major tenant-in-chief with large holdings in Staffordshire and elsewhere, is styled de Stafford in Domesday. He had a by-name derived from a place on his English lands, probably his most important residence. He was a son of Roger de Toeni and had obviously not inherited his name, though it was inherited from him by his son, and became the hereditary surname of a leading aristocratic family. At a lower level, subtenants of Norman origin can be found in 1086 with by-names from English place-names. For instance, in Sussex, two of the subtenants listed in Domesday were Robert de Hasting and Robert de Olecumbe, with by-names from Hastings (Sussex) and Ulcombe (Kent), respectively. Clearly these names were not existing hereditary ones brought in from Normandy, but by-names acquired after the Conquest. Domesday records many similar cases of tenants who, judging from their personal names and other evidence, were from Normandy or elsewhere in France, and who had by 1086, twenty years after Hastings, already adopted by-names from places in England, by-names which were in some cases transmitted to their descendants, and became hereditary surnames. The tendency for landholders to have by-names or surnames from the names of places where they held property should be noted.

Despite this evidence, which shows that many of William I’s followers who obtained land in England plainly did not have hereditary surnames, there is evidence that by 1066 some noble families in Normandy had surnames which had descended hereditarily for a generation or two. William de Warenne, for instance, a large tenant-in-chief with lands in Sussex, Surrey, Yorkshire, and Norfolk, and the founder of a family long important in English history, was the son of Rodolfus de Warenne; the name is from a small settlement, Warenne (Seine-Maritime). This is one source of the surname Warren, though it has other origins as well. Henry de Fereires, a tenant-in-chief in Derbyshire, Staffordshire, and elsewhere, was the son of Walkelin de Fereires; the surname was transmitted to Henry’s descendants, who were major landowners in England for the next two centuries and are traceable in this country to a later date. The present surname Ferrers is from one or other of the French places called Ferrières. Walter Giffard, a tenant-in-chief in the south Midlands, had inherited his name from his father. Giffard, a surname which still survives, is from a nickname, with the meaning ‘fat cheeks’, and is one of several surnames or by-names of the nickname type found among landholding families of Norman origin in England after the Conquest. William de Aubigny, who acquired lands in Norfolk at a rather later date, probably under William II, and later became earl of Arundel, had a father and grandfather named de Aubigny, and had a surname traceable to the early or middle eleventh century. William’s surname was from St Martin d’Aubigny (La Manche); the present day surname which occurs as Daubeney, Dabney, Dobney, and so on is from one of the several places in France named Aubigny, not necessarily the one just mentioned. There are a fair number of other examples of landholders from Normandy, holding land in England by 1086, or at a slightly later period, who possessed surnames which had been hereditary for a generation or two.

These instances nearly all concern really large landowners, who were of course the section of the community for whom there is the most information. If there was more evidence about the names of lesser landholders, like many of the Domesday subtenants, it might reveal the presence of hereditary surnames in moderate numbers among them too, but this is very uncertain. In fact, very few Domesday subtenants had surnames or by-names which were borne later by people certainly identifiable as their descendants. It seems clear that only a minority of Norman landholders had hereditary names at the time of the Conquest, and that where hereditary names existed, they had only been hereditary for, usually, a generation or two by 1066.

On this strictly limited scale, hereditary surnames were imported from France into England after 1066. In the two centuries or so after the Conquest, hereditary names were acquired by most families of major landholders, and by many landed families of lesser importance. The great landholding families are usually well documented, and there is generally no difficulty in discovering what the position is as regards their surnames. Many major landholding families acquired hereditary surnames between the time of Domesday, and about 1200. In some cases, as already mentioned, Domesday tenants-in-chief transmitted their by-names to their descendants, who used them as hereditary surnames. By about 1250 the great majority of great landholding families had hereditary surnames, though there were exceptions, like the FitzWalter family, who were important landholders in Essex and East Anglia, but who did not possess a hereditary surname until the early fourteenth century. As far as this social group was concerned, there appear to have been no differences in the adoption of hereditary surnames between one region of England and another, and in fact the position in Scotland was not very different from that in England. This is what would be expected, for the great landholders formed a single social class across the whole country, often intermarrying; many major landholders had estates in several different regions, and some had lands in both England and Scotland. Marked regional differences are not to be expected in such circumstances.

Below the really great landowners, who were roughly the group who would later constitute the peerage, lay the much larger and considerably more varied class of knights and other landholders of moderate wealth (forming the class which would later be called the gentry). The wealth of individual families in this class varied considerably, ranging from those which held a single manor, or even just part of one, to the holders of estates which were similar in size and value to those of the less wealthy barons. The early development of hereditary names in this class is not easy to trace. Evidence for the period between the time of Domesday and about 1150 is for many such families very incomplete. When fuller information becomes available from about 1150 onwards, it can be seen that some families have histories for the period 1100 to about 1150 which can be discovered fairly fully, but this applies to a minority of such families. Some landed families had descents from subtenants mentioned in Domesday, but the number of cases where this can be satisfactorily proved is not very great, taking England as a whole. Many landed families which can be found during about 1150 to 1200 have no antecedents which can be discovered, and may well not have been descended from Domesday subtenants. Many instances can be found of landed families at this level who had acquired hereditary surnames by about 1200, but it is not easy to say with precision what proportion of families in this class had hereditary names by any particular date.

Some evidence about the circumstances of particular groups of knightly families can be put forward. Among the tenants by knight service of the Honour of Wallingford, a large group of estates in the south Midlands, nearly four-fifths of the families had acquired hereditary names by 1200¹. The position among the remaining one fifth is in some cases uncertain; only a small minority were still without hereditary surnames by 1200. Turning to another part of England, there is some information from a document which lists most of the major landholders in Lancashire in 1212. Out of these, more than a third certainly had hereditary surnames by 1212. This is something of a minimum figure, since the position about the remaining two-thirds is uncertain in some instances.²

Evidence such as this, and an investigation into the names of many individual families, suggests that in the south of England, the Midlands, and East Anglia, many knightly families had acquired hereditary names by about 1200, and that by about 1250 the great majority of such families had hereditary names. In the north of England the development was perhaps slightly later. The evolution of hereditary names was not a uniform or regular process, and there were exceptions; some English knightly families were still without surnames in the fourteenth century.

It does, however, seem that by the middle thirteenth century a majority of large and medium landowners in England had acquired hereditary surnames. As is apt to be the case where surnames are concerned, it is easier to observe the developments that took place, than to explain why they happened. Some considerations which influenced landholders into adopting surnames can be detected. A look at any of the lists of feudal landholders compiled by the Exchequer and Chancery during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries will show that, of those listed with surnames or by-names, a high proportion have names derived from place-names. In Scotland, the list of those who did homage to Edward I in 1296 (the ‘Ragman Roll’), is notable for the high proportion of persons with locative names.³ Most of these people were landholders, though some were burgesses, and the status of others is not known. It was extremely common for a landholding family to possess a surname which was derived from a place-name, usually from a place which was the family’s main residence, or which was the most important part of its estates. (Indeed, the chief characteristic which distinguishes the surnames of landholders at an early period from those of other classes is just that landholders tended to have a much larger proportion of surnames derived from place-names than did any other section or the community.) There is obviously a fairly direct connection between the possession of a hereditary surname of this kind, and the possession of a hereditary landed estate. For about a century or so after the Conquest, there was possibly a degree of uncertainty about the position of landholders who held from the king. William I had made many large grants of lands, and many landholders in the period after the Conquest were the heirs, or the successors in title, of the recipients of his grants. How far his grants were grants of property in fee and inheritance was perhaps not clear. In these circumstances, anything which helped to stress the hereditary character of tenure was likely to be viewed with favour by landowners, and the acquisition of a hereditary surname, especially one derived from a landed family’s estates, would obviously have this effect. It would seem that this must have been one reason, perhaps the principal one, for landholding families adopting hereditary surnames. It was part of a general trend for them to consolidate their position as hereditary property owners.

The close connection between hereditary surnames and hereditary land ownership by primogeniture can be seen further from the way in which, in some families, the senior line of a family continued to use a hereditary surname, while junior branches, not of course possessing the main family estate, began at various periods to use new surnames. This practice was fairly common in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and is sometimes found later. To mention two examples, the de Trafford family of Trafford (now part of Manchester), had a hereditary surname from the twelfth century, derived of course from the place which was the centre of their estate. In the late thirteenth century, by which time the family’s name was well established, Sir Richard de Trafford gave lands at Chadderton, in south Lancashire (now in Greater Manchester) to a younger son, who assumed the name of de Chadderton, a surname which his descendants, owners of land at Chadderton, continued to employ, as a hereditary surname. The elder branch of the family continued to use the surname of de Trafford. Similarly in Sussex, in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, land at Socknersh (near Brightling) came into the hands of younger sons of William de St. Leger, who had a hereditary surname by then in use for several generations and derived from a locality in France where the family had held land; a younger branch of the de St. Leger family then adopted the name of de Sokenerse, which descended in that line of the family as a hereditary surname, while the senior line continued to use the name of de St Leger. Researchers who push their investigations back into the Middle Ages will have to reckon with the fact that landed families with settled hereditary surnames sometimes threw out younger branches which chose entirely new names.

There was an obvious link between the possession of hereditary surnames by landed families and their possession of hereditary estates, descending for the most part by primogeniture, but beyond this little can be said about the motives which led such families to acquire and retain surnames. It does not appear that the possession of a hereditary name was at any time a mark of high status, even though the habit of using such names began with the larger landowners. Something may be due to influences from France, where landowners were acquiring hereditary names at much the same time as those in England, or perhaps rather earlier. A good many landholders in England still had property in France, mostly in Normandy, during the twelfth century, and must have been aware of what the trends in France were. A parallel can be seen in the spread of coats of arms, which were hereditary, from France to England in the twelfth century.

Landholding families were, generally speaking, the best documented part of the population during the Middle Ages, and there is a good deal of evidence about their surnames and by-names, even if at points the evidence is not as full as might be wished. It is much more difficult to see what is happening among other social classes, for whose names there is much less evidence, especially during the two centuries or so after the Conquest. It would seem that in the south of England and East Anglia, very few families, apart from substantial landholders, had hereditary surnames before about 1150. Between about 1150 and 1250 instances where families outside the ranks of sizable landholders had hereditary surnames begin to appear, but remained few. Between about 1250 and 1350, many families belonging to various classes acquired surnames. It is not possible to give precise statistics, but it is likely that, in the regions in question, rather more than half the population had surnames by about 1350. The late fourteenth-century poll tax returns, which give a more complete view of the names then in use than any other source for the same period, show that about 1380 there were still numbers of people without any surnames or by-names at all. By the early fifteenth century, however, it seems to have been unusual in these regions not to have a surname. In the north of England, developments occurred about a century later than in the south and Midlands. Wales and Scotland each had their own course of development.

Something can be said in rather more detail about the growth of hereditary names among some sections of the population, but it is worth considering how and why families came to have surnames. It has sometimes been suggested that names were given to people by officials, such as the clerks who drew up manor court rolls and other manorial records such as rentals, or by the taxers who drew up the lists of taxpayers assessed for the lay subsidies, but there is little evidence for this. It is true that the keeping of written records increased noticeably during the thirteenth century, so that the ordinary man was much more likely to have his name put down in writing in 1300 than in 1200, and it is true that the use of written title deeds increased during the same period, which would affect small freeholders (a considerable part of the population in most areas), and might have led to clerks who drew up deeds bestowing by-names on parties to property transactions for the sake of legal precision, and to prevent confusion between individuals with the same first name. Certainly by 1300 direct taxation was reaching a long way down into society, and title deeds were coming to be used even for small pieces of property. It might be supposed that the increased use of documents for one purpose or another, and the tendency for all classes of society except the very poor to appear in written records, would make it convenient for most people to have permanent by-names, if not hereditary surnames, but there is little sign of this being the case. Many persons appear in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century documents, such as tax assessments, without any surnames or by-names at all, often listed as simply the son of some person (in the usual formula, ‘John son of William’, and so forth). This persisted over a long period, and there is no indication that it caused any practical difficulties.

Furthermore, the whole nature of many surnames and by-names which can be found during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries tells against the theory that they were often allocated by officials. Most surnames or by-names found at those periods do not seem to be of the kind likely to be allotted by an official, even by some local clerk with a personal knowledge of those involved. Many surnames seem likely to have begun as by-names used in speech, which developed into hereditary surnames. One large category of surnames, for instance, a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table Of Contents
• Editorial preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The evolution of hereditary surnames
• Chapter 2 Locative surnames
• Chapter 3 Topographical surnames
• Chapter 4 Surnames derived from personal names
• Chapter 5 Occupational surnames
• Chapter 6 Surnames derived from nicknames
• Chapter 7 Some general themes in the history of surnames
• Chapter 8 Surnames and local history
• Chapter 9 Advice on further reading
• Index