The great race for popularity since Domesday record has ever been that between ‘William’ and ‘John.’ In the age immediately following the Conquest ‘William’ decidedly held the supremacy. This is naturally accounted for by its royal associations. There was, indeed, a ‘John’ in the same line of descent as the Bastard from Richard I. of Normandy, but the name seems to have been forgotten, or passed by unheeded, till it was revived again five generations later in ‘John Lackland.’ ‘William’ enjoyed better auspices. It was the name of the founder of the new monarchy. It was the name of his immediate successor. Whatever the character of these two kings, such a conjunction could not but have its weight upon the especially Norman element in the kingdom. We find in Domesday that while there are 68 ‘Williams,’ 48 ‘Roberts,’ and 28 ‘Walters,’ there are only 10 ‘Johns.’ A century later than this, ‘William’ must still have claimed precedence among the nobility at least, as is proved by a statement of Robert Montensis. He says, that at a festival held in the court of Henry II., in 1173, Sir William St. John and Sir William Fitz-Hamon, especial officers, had commanded that none but those of the name of ‘William’ should dine in the Great Chamber with them, and were, therefore, accompanied by one hundred and twenty ‘Williams,’ all knights. By the time of Edward I. this disproportion had become less marked. In a list of names connected with the county of Wiltshire in that reign, we find, out of a total of 588 decipherable names (for the record is somewhat damaged), 92 ‘Williams’ to 88 ‘Johns,’ while ‘Richard’ is credited with 55; ‘Robert,’ 48; ‘Roger,’ 23; and ‘Geoffrey,’ ‘Ralph,’ and ‘Peter,’ each 16 names. This denotes clearly that a considerable change had taken place in the popular estimation of these two appellations. Within a century after this, however, ‘John’ had evidently gained the supremacy. In 1347, we find that out of 133 Common Councilmen for London town first convened, 35 were ‘Johns,’ the next highest being 17 under the head of ‘William,’ 15 under ‘Thomas,’ which now, for obvious reasons we will mention hereafter, had suddenly sprung into notoriety; 10 under ‘Richard,’ 9 under ‘Henry,’ 8 under ‘Robert,’ and so on; ending with one each for ‘Laurence,’ ‘Reynald,’ ‘Andrew,’ ‘Alan,’ ‘Giles,’ ‘Gilbert,’ and ‘Peter.’ A still greater disproportion is found forty years later; for in 1385, the Guild of St. George, at Norwich, out of a total of 376 names, possessed 128 ‘Johns’ to 47 ‘Williams’ and 41 ‘Thomases.’[28] From this period, despite the hatred that was felt for Lackland, ‘John’ kept the precedence it had won, and to this circumstance the nation owes the sobriquet it now generally receives, that of ‘John Bull.’ Long ago, however, under the offensive title of ‘Jean Gotdam,’ we had become known as a people given to strange and unpleasant oaths. It is interesting to trace the way in which ‘William’ has again recovered itself in later days.