Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) CURIOSITIES OF PURITAN NOMENCLATURE BY THE SAME AUTHOR. _Crown 8vo, cloth extra, 7s. 6d._ OUR ENGLISH SURNAMES: their Sources and Significations. "Mr. Bardsley has faithfully consulted the original mediaeval documents and works from which the origin and development of surnames can alone be satisfactorily traced. He has furnished a valuable contribution to the literature of surnames, and we hope to hear more of him in this field."--_Times._ _CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W._ CURIOSITIES OF PURITAN NOMENCLATURE BY CHARLES W. BARDSLEY AUTHOR OF "ENGLISH SURNAMES, THEIR SOURCES AND SIGNIFICATIONS" "O my lord, The times and titles now are alter'd strangely" KING HENRY VIII. London CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1880 [_The right of translation is reserved_] _Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Limited, London and Beccles._ DEDICATED TO HIS FELLOW MEMBERS OF THE HARLEIAN SOCIETY. PREFACE. I will not be so ill-natured as to quote the names of all the writers who have denied the existence of Puritan eccentricities at the font. One, at least, ought to have known better, for he has edited more books of the Puritan epoch than any other man in England. The mistake of all is that, misled perhaps by Walter Scott and Macaulay, they have looked solely to the Commonwealth period. The custom was then in its decay. I have to thank several clergymen for giving me extracts from the registers and records under their care. A stranger to them, I felt some diffidence in making my requests. In every case the assistance I asked for was readily extended. These gentlemen are the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, St. Matthew, Friday Street, London; the Rev. W. Wodehouse, Elham, Canterbury; the Rev. J. B. Waytes, Markington, Yorks.; the Rev. William Tebbs, Caterham Valley; the Rev. Canon Howell, Drayton, Norwich; the Rev. J. O. Lord, Northiam, Staplehurst; and the Rev. G. E. Haviland, Warbleton, Sussex. The last-named gentleman copied no less than 120 names, all of Puritan origin, from the Warbleton records. I beg to thank him most warmly, and to congratulate him on possessing the most remarkable register of its kind in England. Certain circumstances led me to suspect that Warbleton was a kind of head-quarters of these eccentricities; I wrote to the rector, and we soon found that we had "struck ile." That Mr. Heley, the Puritan incumbent, should have baptized his own children by such names as Fear-not and Much-mercy, was not strange, but that he should have persuaded the majority of his parishioners to follow his example proves wonderful personal influence.