It is astonishing how carefully will a sobriquet of an undoubtedly complimentary nature find itself preserved. Such a name as ‘Hugh le Bell’ or ‘Richard le Bell’ is an instance in point.[473] While objectionable designations, or even those of but equivocal character, have been gradually shuffled off or barely allowed to survive, the mere fact of this being at the present day one of the most familiar, and in respect of sobriquet nomenclature the absolutely most common, of our surnames, shows that the human heart is not altered by lapse of generations, and that pride then, as now, wielded a powerful sceptre over the minds of men. Our ‘Belhams’ represent but the fuller ‘Bellehomme’ (‘William Bellehomme,’ M.). Thus the two may be set against our Saxon ‘Prettys’ and ‘Prettimans,’[474] though ‘pretty’ would scarcely find itself so acceptable now, denoting as it does a style of beauty rather too effeminate for the lords of creation. In the Hundred Rolls occur ‘Matilda Winsome’ and ‘Alicia Welliking.’ Both these terms, complimentary as they undoubtedly were, are now obsolete, so far as our directories are concerned. (2) _Nicknames from Peculiarities of Complexion._ After all, however, it is, perhaps, complexion which has occupied for itself the largest niche in our more general nomenclature. Nor is this unnatural. It is still that which, in describing people, we seize upon as the best means of recognition. Sobriquets of this kind were so numerous, indeed, that there was no term in the vocabulary of the day which could be used to denote the colour of the dress, the hair, or the face, which did not find itself a place among our surnames.