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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: hepburn on Friday 07 April 06 15:52 BST (UK)
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some surnames origininate from places,some from an occupation,but where do names like kitchen,parlour,come from?,and king ,rook, bishop,then theres colours. green, white,black,brown.doe's anyone know?g
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Well you can see how Kitchen could come from an occupation, like Cook, Kitchenmaid etc. Green I suppose could be a description of a place, Brown could be a description of appearance or clothing. I have a Dictionary of Surnames somewhere. Will try to find it and come back to you!
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yep named after places they came from etc ;)
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Thought I had a Dictionary of Surnames but must have once borrowed one from a library which is why I thought I had one. Should really get one, as definitely need MORE BOOKS! ;D ;D
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There are basically 4 origins for surnames:
place - could be a place name or a geographical reference like Wood or Hill
patronymic - son of, like Johnson or Watson
nickname - like Redhead
occupation - Cook, Smith, Taylor etc.
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My surname Phillips, comes from the Greek, meaning "lover of horses". I don't know what the Greek for "lover of cats, dogs, elephants and any other animal with four legs" is.
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hi Suttontrust
Always an interesting one, this. My take on the two bugbear surnames in my family are thus:
SHAW: my surname. A thicket or wood - a very convenient concept for my grandfather who used this name, amongst others (SMITH and perhaps O'CONNELL) to desert from both the army and navy, and evade various authorities around the turn of the 20th century.
DAVIES: Son of David. A very conveniently common Welsh name, especially if used in conjunction with Welsh forenames (eg Llewellyn) so that you can escape the English authorities (who think you've run off back to Wales), desert your wife and kids and run off to Oz and marry bigamously.
Clara
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Yes I can Understand all the place names like wood,field,meadows,but what about the chess pieces,what about castle, chapel, house, church.why birds,bunting, rook, swift, eagles,is there any more odd ones.g
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The names can't always be taken literally. Rook actually comes from Oak - meaning someone who lives near an Oak tree - according to my Dictionary of Surmnames anyway.
My book also tells me that names like kitchen and parlour refer to servants in a house and their responsibilities.
Anita
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Surnames SMELLIE, CRAPP, TROLLOPE and PRATT.....
No, I'm not being rude; these are surnames which I've come across in my lifetime. :o
A lady (quite a posh one) that my mum knew whose surname was Smellie. A girl I was at school with in the 70s whose surname was Crapp (she was not a happy bunny). Another girl in the year below me whose surname was Trollope - her parents made sure she was doubly burdened by giving her the christian name of Griselda; and Pratt, the name of a certain Sid who used to board at my grandma's house - always the butt of family jokes... ;)
Obviously, these names have an origin... :-\ but thankfully, I've personally avoided them! ;)
Clara
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Toplady is a good one - I read this originates as a description of a man who, if he were a woman, would be called all sorts of opprobrious names! (i.e. he was a bit of a devil with the ladies!)
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more unhappy bunnies.nobbs,crapper,winkle,clapp,and fluck
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I met a Belgian once by the name of Moron
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Like that one, Mrs Lizzy! :D
I remember the Bogie family as well (they pronounced it BO-JAY) ;)
I also like surnames which obviously must have been given hundreds of years ago to actually describe what people looked like: eg the Longbones - these really were a tall, long-limbed family I remember from a while back! And surnames which have been anglicised, like Pardew, and probably Boys (one of my own), for that matter....
Clara
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I was told that during the last War, one of my Noquet cousins was a cultural attache to the embassy in Moscow and that at a very posh reception, he and his wife were introduced as Monsieur Nocketoff and Madame Nocketover (i.e. Knock It Off and Knock It Over!) How much truth there is in this I don't know.
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I love finding out where surnames come from. My surname and my mothers madien name both just mean 'son of' so it gets a bit boring!
What about Burrows? What would that have been? There are so many Burrows in my tree! And I dread to think where Hardman came from.
The best surnames I've come across are Duckfield and Cakebread..heh.
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I like that one,Ihave a Scalley and a Knee in my tree
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Well, thought I'd actually see if I could find the meanings of those names which I was jesting about:
SMELLIE: A Scots name referring to someone who smiled alot - Smiley is another derivative
CRAPP: From the Old English meaning 'cropp' meaning cut. Quite common in Lancs.
TROLLOPE: Norman name 'trois loups' meaning 3 wolves
PRATT: From the Old English 'praet' meaning 'a trick' - it referred to someone who was a trickster or practical joker.
So perhaps old Sid had the last laugh on us.... ;)
Clara
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By the way, I got this info from http://www.houseofnames.com/. Absolutely loads of surname meanings which hopefully might answer your original question, gcar?
MrsLizzy, it's even got the name Moron on it!! :o
Clara
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Thanks Clara, for the site .I've just been on it,and had a look,found out how my name came about.geraldine.
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Well having the surname Trollope I never knew it meant three wolves - am liking it!
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Well, how did Trollope get to mean that other meaning, re a certain type of female?
Foxy lady???
Years ago I met a family with the surname Aarsse - understandably they pronounced it Air-See!
:P :P :P
Dawn M
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Yes, I fear a lady of some ill repute probably had the phrase coined about her and it stuck! Probably why someone went on and stuck an 'e' on the end of Trollop and asked for it to be pronounced 'Troll-opee' ;D
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Thomas Crapper invented the modern toilet and the name stuck :-\ I wonder what his family think of that?
Whitaker I wondered how that name came about, and sure enough it dates back to when the family farmed wheat.
Lyall as in the Scottish sound for Lion. I do not think any of the Lyall's fought lions, maybe they were fearless like a lion or just slept all day and got the women to run around for them ;D
We all know how son gets put on the end of a name like Robertson - Son of Robert, where does that leave the females?
Suzy W
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Scandinavians add dotter to a name, e.g. hansdotter is Hans' daughter
Dawn M
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Then there are the census pages.
Due to the number of people who couldn't write and the census taker writing down the name as they heard it, quite a few names would have been changed on how they were spelt.
I have a family with the name Combe but in one census they are down as ANScombe. I imagine when the family gave their name someone must have said Robert and Combe which was misheard and written as Anscombe. :-\ :-\
Luckily for me the next census they were back to Combe :)
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We had a family at school named Sidebottom - they pronounced it Siddee-Bott-ome.
I don't know how you get around Winterbottom - but you would probably want to - we had some of them too! I guess they came from some place in England called . . . .bottom - and there are lots of them aren't there! ;)
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My best friend before I left UK for OZ had the surname 'Bathmaker' which I thought very unusual.
Joe
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My grans name was winspur It means a man who
won his spurs as a knight
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Onions pronounced as Oh-nye-onns is another one!
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Sorry, SuzyW, Thomas Crapper didn't invent the W.C., nor was the bra invented by Otto Titslinger.
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This site is worth a look: "Internet Surname Database": http://www.surnamedb.com/
Years ago I worked with a lady who was Miss Cockaday, and a neighbour was Mr Glasscock. And I knew lady who was Mrs Strange - she hated the name so much she would never say it out loud - only whisper it!
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Sorry, SuzyW, Thomas Crapper didn't invent the W.C., nor was the bra invented by Otto Titslinger.
Crapper didn't invent the W.C., but who would want to go for a 'harington' ? ;D
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He may not have invented it but he did give it his name. Or at least the term came into use because of him & his name. He was a plumber & invented the "Valveless Waste Preventer" which had his name stamped on it. Since by the time one got around to saying, "I must away to the Thomas Crapper Valveless Waste Preventer." it was probably a bit late, the much simpler name of crapper was easier. ::) ;D
Seriously tho', many names are colloquial / local dialect words for simple things & jobs or foreign words for simple things & jobs. eg, my own Yeatman comes from gate-keeper.
Leonie.
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Years ago I worked with a lady who was Miss Cockaday, and a neighbour was Mr Glasscock. And I knew lady who was Mrs Strange - she hated the name so much she would never say it out loud - only whisper it!
How strange! It's (well it used to be) a well known name here in Oz because a guy of that name was one of the chief organisers of the Australian Bicentennial celebrations in 1988.
My grandmother's sister married a guy in 1881 in Sydney, named John Charles Crook Strange. I've always thought his parents were cruel giving him a name of Crook to go with Strange. :P :P :P
And one of his children got the name John George Prince Strange. I guess Prince Strange is a bit better, as there have been a lot of strange princes throughout history ::) ::) ::)
And the first guy I mentioned is into FH too, and we have compared notes and think there is no relationship in our respective families. ???
Dawn M
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I think you lot have got me started on a new hobby. :D
My parents were ENNIS & JONES. Well Jones is easy, but Ennis or Innis is a small island in a river. It's from Scottish and Irish words. Except I'm 90% sure my ENNIS family came from Portugal, in which case it would have been Anglicized from INACIO. ??? Oops... there goes my auntie turning in her grave again. According to her we were Scottish!! She even got herself an ENNIS tartin kilt. ;D
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One group that has not been explained (unless I missed it ;) ) in this thread is the origin of names like King, Bishop, Pope etc. I have read that they were given to the people who played these parts in the medieval mystery plays. Some surnames have not surprisingly vanished into extinction, or near extinction e.g. Pimp, which is quite common in the 19th century Lincolnshire censuses, and of course Whore or Whoreson where the spelling has been changed to something less explicit e..g. Hoar etc.One I like particularly is the surname Pigg, which still exists in North Yorkshire. I can recommend the ONS site Surnames of England and Wales for further research.
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Spare a thought too for those named Matterface; pronounced Mat-ter-fa-ce.
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Redroger, I think I recall reading that names like King, Bishop, Pope etc were derived from "of the household of.." eg, John Pope = John of the Pope's household. Actually, I do remember now, it was when I was looking for my PAPPS family. PAPPS is also a derivative of POPE.
Leonie.
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Spare a thought too for those named Matterface; pronounced Mat-ter-fa-ce.
My PE teacher many years ago had the unfortunate name of Miss Matterface...NOT a good name for a teacher of cheeky kids! Lovely woman though!
My Grandmothers name was DALRYMPLE- found out it was a village in Ayrshire, and my surname is SHERIFF, I guess my hubbys family used to lay down the law in olden times LOL
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Leonie, That is the alternative origin that I forgot to mention. Thanks.
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I met someone once who was called Miss Crude. Poor lady - she was anything but!
Melbell.
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Maybe her ancestors had changed the name from Cruddas!
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Whilst trawling the PRs, time and time again I came across the name Snowball, which I thoguth was lovely! Any ideas where that came from?
My maiden name is Russell, which is very apt as I am a redhead!
sallysmum
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I met someone with the surname Snowball about 10 years ago, and wondered at the unusual name too.
:) :) :) :) :)
Dawn M
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I met someone with the surname Snowball about 10 years ago, and wondered at the unusual name too.
:) :) :) :) :)
Dawn M
Surnames of England and Wales website shows 1556 Snowballs in England and Wales in 2002. 3 times more common than my own surname.
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Surnames of England and Wales website shows 1556 Snowballs in England and Wales in 2002. 3 times more common than my own surname.
Well, there you go! My Snowball was in sub tropical Queensland. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
And no, there were no melting moments. :P :P :P
Dawn M
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I have encountered the surname Snowball twice, both had connections to north east England, one lived in Scarborough, the other Darlington.
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Scarborough would be slightly too low for the Snowball there to have long time roots there. Its mainly Durham and Northumberland. I have only known one. In Salt Lake City, Utah.
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Yes, Snowball is a fairly common surname in the north-east.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0q5z/
We once knew a couple called Snowball: their daughter was known by one and all as 'The Snowflake'.
Another slightly unusual north-east surname name is Tulip.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0q60/
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Seen Tulip once, funnily enough in the same street as the Snowball at Scarborough! Tulip 943 instances, still almost twice as frequent as my own name.
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I have seen Pharoah/ Pharaoh in County Durham but they did not arrive there until the middle of Queen Victoria's reign. The largest amount seem to be from Portsea, Hampshire. However I am a world renowned expert on Freaks of County Durham with about 10 variations of spelling which makes things difficult on indexes. .
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When I lived in Doncaster, I knew people named Caesar, and Ptolomey. Well Doncaster was a Roman foundation, Danum,and in the early first century AD Egypt was a Roman colony, so perhaps that accounts for it. :D
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My family name derives from Cordwainer, (No, not Cordwangler, as per Kenneth Williams) which was a shoemaker, using leather from Cordova.
There have been a few reversions to the shoemaking trade throughout the centuries, and oddly, there is a shop in Seville, Spain, which carries our name, - a leather shop!
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For example my George Coombs was born in Bincombe in Dorset in 1790 and lived in London from about 1810 onwards. Coombs is common down in the West Country. I have Teager in Suffolk which seems Viking.
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Lots of names refer to nearby geographical features. Combe is old English for a wooded valley. One of the names in my Ancestral tree is Hole, which refers to a hollow, and is quite prevalent in Somerset and Yorkshire, where underground caves and other underground features are to be found.
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I have the surname Butt in my tree, luckily they never met and married your ancestors Nick
One of the names in my Ancestral tree is Hole, which refers to a hollow, and is quite prevalent in Somerset and Yorkshire, where underground caves and other underground features are to be found.
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Butt meant either a barrel, or the targets used for archery practice, which was compulsory in the Middle Ages.
I know at least two places with a Butts Road and there must be others.
Unfortunately, the word 'crap' was in use many years before Thomas Crapper began his career.
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I just realised last night, whilst doing a bit of serious stuff, my g-grandfather YEATMAN, who was a shoemaker all his life, was actually a gatekeeper on his last electoral roll entry. YEATMAN / YATEMAN / YETMAN all mean Gateman / Gatekeeper. :D
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My own surname is old english locative and rare according to surnames of England and Wales ... but interestingly I also have some herbaceous names like WOOD,MOULD,FLOWER as well to keep it interesting.
joboy
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The origin of my surname, Ebrey, was always a bit of a puzzle to me until one day I was scrutinizing a large scale map of Shropshire (where the vas majority of Ebreys seem to have come from) and I noticed a tiny place called Ebreywood. Now I like to think that my name originated with a scruffy old hermit who lived in the wood!
Unless, of course, the scruffy hermit came first and the woods were named after him...