| Show W What's hats hat's in n a N Name a IT e eBy i By y Eleanor Clapp Sometimes there is more moro in a name I I than in the who bears it for names were not originally the mere titles that distinguished one man or woman from another When first adopted they all had some well understood understood understood un un- un- un meaning For centuries nobody had but one onename onename onename name and even this first or proper name as we call it signified some personal quality or occupation Thus according to most authorities John which is derived from the Hebrew means wise and merciful George the Greek means a farmer and Henry from the Latin means noble and honorable Mary in Hebrew signifies signifies signifies sig sig- broken hearted and Emma from the German means a nurse or ora ora ora a bee Emily is simply little Emma and so on As the worlds world's population increased and men began to gather together in communities there were often dozens of Johns or Simons or Marthas or Marys in one place This made a continuance of the single name system system system tem an impossibility for what had worked well enough when the earth was sparsely populated was now a source of the greatest confusion In sending a message to anyone writing writing writing writ writ- ing him or even referring to him in conversation it became necessary to add some description to his name by which he could be distinguished This was done in several ways sometimes by describing him as the son of so and so sometimes by adding the name of his city or country or 01 by referring to his occupation We Ve see all three of these plans constantly used in the Bible Dible In the English language the commonest commonest commonest com com- monest of all our surnames come from an ancient occupation The reason the Smith family is at pres- pres i I ent so numerous is because in the middle ages the word smith was used for a wider variety of trades than at present The man who worked in copper gold silver brass even the tho and later the was a smith as well as the man who forged iron or put shoes on horses borses but in all these occupations occupations occupations some sort of metal was used As an ancient rhyme has it From whence came Smith be he be knight or squire But from the tho smith that at atthe atthe atthe the fire It is said that in Great Britain alone there are more than five million million mil mil- I lion smiths and how many there are I In this country has never been even estimated The bearers of the surnames surnames surnames sur sur- names that have descended from William Wil Wil- William liam and John are numerous From the former we get Williamson Williams Wil ViI hams liams Wilson and Wills From John curiously enough comes Jones but when you remember that the old spelling of oe John was Jon this does not seem quite so odd Johnson of course comes from this name as aswell aswell aswell well as Johns while it is easy to see that Richardson was the son of Richard a and n d Robertson the son of Robert and so on It was not until well along in the fifteenth century that the ens custom tom of adopting one surname for all the members of the same family became common Before this it changed with each generation This was because because because be be- cause it was formed by adding the fathers father's name to the sons In an old English document dated 1402 we read of a dispensation granted to one Richard Jonson son of Jon Richardson Richard Richard- son of Fishlake |
