was not till the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, or even fourteenth centuries that they became hereditary—that is, in any true sense stationary. Before, however, we enter into the history of these, and with regard to England that is the purpose of this book, it will be well to take a brief survey of the actual state of human nomenclature in preceding times. Surnames, we must remember, were the simple result of necessity when population, hitherto isolated and small, became so increased as to necessitate further particularity than the merely personal one could supply. One name, therefore, was all that was needed in early times, and one name, as a general rule, is all that we find. The Bible is, of course, our first record of these—‘Adam,’ ‘Eve,’ ‘Joseph,’ ‘Barak,’ ‘David,’ ‘Isaiah,’ all were simple, single, and expressive titles, given in most cases from some circumstances attending their creation or birth. When the Israelites were crowded together in the wilderness they were at once involved in difficulties of identification. We cannot imagine to ourselves how such a population as that of Manchester or Birmingham could possibly get on with but single appellations. Of course I do not put this by way of real comparison, for with the Jewish clan or family system this difficulty must have been materially overcome. Still it is no wonder that in the later books of Moses we should find them falling back upon this patronymic as a means of identifying the individual. Thus such expressions as ‘Joshua the son of Nun,’ or ‘Caleb the son of Jephunah,’ or ‘Jair the son of Manasseh,’ are not unfrequently to be met with. Later on, this necessity was caused by a further circumstance. Certain of these single names became popular over others. ‘John,’ ‘Simon,’ and ‘Judas’ were such. A further distinction, therefore, was necessary. This gave rise to sobriquets of a more diverse character. We find the _patronymic_ still in use, as in ‘Simon Barjonas,’ that is, ‘Simon the son of Jonas;’ but in addition to this, we have also the _local_ element introduced, as in ‘Simon of Cyrene,’ and the _descriptive_ in ‘Simon the Zealot.’ Thus, again, we have ‘Judas Iscariot,’ whatever that may mean, for commentators are divided upon the subject; ‘Judas Barsabas,’ and ‘Judas of Galilee.’ In the meantime the heathen but polished nations of Greece and Rome had been adopting similar means, though the latter was decidedly the first in method. Among the former, such double names as ‘Dionysius the Tyrant,’ ‘Diogenes the Cynic,’ ‘Socrates the son of Sophronicus,’ or ‘Hecatæus of Miletus,’ show the same custom, and the same need. To the Roman, however, belongs, as I have said, the earliest system of nomenclature, a system, perhaps, more careful and precise than any which has followed after. The purely Roman citizen had a threefold name. The first denoted the ‘_prænomen_,’ and answered to our personal, or baptismal, name. The second was what we